About John

I didn't start out to be a potter. Does anyone? I was going to be a car designer, move to Detroit and draw tail fins. Doodling on the margins of my school papers always got me into trouble in grade school, and cars stirred my adolescent blood, so car designing seemed inevitable. But five semesters of Art Center in L.A. showed me that there were people who were much better artists that I was,
and the prospect of moving to Detroit became increasingly unappealing.

So I switched to Psychology - it was a time of questing, for me, and others. One B.A. (Psych., San Francisco State) and lots of rejection letters from grad schools later found me working as a social worker, and taking night classes at the local junior college to fight the boredom. The pottery class stuck and I became addicted. All I could think about was my pottery class.

I could read the handwriting on the wall, so I quit my job, went back to school (thank you G.I. Bill!) and became a full-time pottery student at San Jose State. Everyone there told me that you couldn't make a living as a potter, you have to teach (they were all teachers and didn't know much about being a working potter). I figured that was the way to go, but luckily I fell into a situation where I was able to begin selling my pottery on the weekends at a local shopping area in Los Gatos. "Hey, I can sell this stuff and make money!"

So I quit school (I'd become involved in all the anti-war activity at the time and my school work was suffering badly anyway) and became a potter. You don't need any credentials to sell pots, just good pots. It's been a hard way to make a living, but a wonderful life!
Someone once said that being an artist is like being yourself for a living.

Now, fifty plus years later, my career as a successful production potter is winding down. I’m still making pots but the heavy effort of doing craft shows is causing me to give them up. I do have some pots in some galleries. The variety of pottery is more limited but the pots are as good as ever.
 
If you want to check out the galleries they are:     The Artists’ Collaborative Gallery, 129 K Street, Sacramento (Old Sac.) www.artcollab.com
    Solano Town Center Gallery (in the Town Center Mall), 1350 Travis Blvd, Fairfield www.fsvaa.com
Gallery 10, 15 Eureka St., Sutter Creek, CA www.gallery10.org
These are co-op galleries where I put in a couple of days each month. Contact me if you want to stop by on my days. reigers@earthlink.net
Some other information that may be useful: Product Use, Butter Dish, Dip Cooler, Poetry, Mouse Story