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Kate & Jere Huffman • What Cheer, IA • Stoneware
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Jere and Kate Huffman, the owners of What Cheer Potters, have been working together as potters and husband and wife since 1972. Jere and Kate attended Luther College in the mid to late 60s and learned about the many techniques and processes of making pottery. With an intention to build a kiln, they traveled to a small town in southern Iowa that was said to have an abandoned sewer pipe factory with many beehive kilns made of fire brick.
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With great diligence, they started mining out the bricks and stacking them in large piles to build a grand kiln. Without realizing it, they were building the foundation for their pottery. They moved their possessions to What Cheer in 1972 and have been "in process" of making pottery ever since. |
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Jere is a masterful potter. After making pottery for more than 40 years, his expertise at handling the clay on the wheel shows clearly in his light, beautiful forms. Kate also works on the wheel making smaller pots, but her mastery has been on the glaze and design applied to each piece. Much of her time is spent drawing and mixing glaze tests in order to decorate the pot and create new decorations and colors. |
Our current technique for decorating the ware is to brush a wax resistant design on top of the first glaze, and then place a second glaze on top of that. Additional colored glazes are applied whenever the design calls for color.
Once each piece has been glazed, it goes into an electric kiln for a second time and is fired in order to melt all of the glazes that have been applied and to vitrify the clay into a finished piece. Jere completes all of the firing, because he both understands and enjoys the process, and he has devoted a lot of his time to becoming an expert. |
It takes about two months for each ball of clay to go through all of the processes and become a finished piece of pottery. Because it is just the two of us and we make every piece ourselves, our production is limited. |
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Our work has evolved over the years and will continue to change as new ideas and glazes are realized. Each piece is an original work - the result of working day after day, year after year, towards the making of a beautiful pot.
What Cheer Potters make fine functional stoneware using a potter's wheel and a special blend of clay, which adds a unique quality to the workability and firing properties of the finished product. The glazes and clay body are continuously being developed for color, feel, and texture, with qualities that work well in the microwave and dishwasher.
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