Lin, a retired art teacher, and Mike, a retired railroad pipe fitter and house painter, met in 2016 through a mutual friend. Commonalities in any relationship are fabulous but sometimes these common ground values have to be nurtured. Both love county living, gardening, fishing, hunting....blah blah... but there is only so much fishing a girl can stand. I must admit Mike likes fishing and hunting a whole lot more than I do.

One day while working in my pottery studio, I had an eureka moment...Mike has large hands...he could throw large pots! He had already expressed interest in my pottery. So a partnership was established with me trying to teach him. I seemed not to be able too. I sent him to two other pottery teachers. The last sweet gal fired him, told him to practice. Well, he’s been practicing and now he throws beautiful pottery. With him still climbing the learning curve he has achieved great skill.

Our pottery story began with an accident. Mike had just completed three bowls with wall thickness, balance, weight, and designs all perfection. He decided he would place these outside to speed up drying. He carried two and I the other. Whoops. As I turned, the lip of the bowl was sliced by the cutting wire. I felt so terrible. I thought I’m in the dog house now. But Mike just laughed. Thank you Jesus! The idea for putting dogs on pots was born at that very moment.

We both have our niche, Mike prefers traditional pottery where as I lean more to the sculptural narrative pottery.