This audio was summarized by Gerry Williams and published under Grace Hampton's name in Volume 10, Number 2, June 1982. The title of her entry was “Black Crafts,” a section of the series “Mississippi Trace,” which highlights several ceramists living and working in Mississippi.

In this episode of Studio Potter – The Podcast, listeners travel to Bakersville, North Carolina, to visit Rock Creek Pottery and hear the voices of Douglass Rankin and Will Ruggles. Rooted in the rich clay traditions of western North Carolina, Rock Creek Pottery is both a living archive of regional knowledge, experimentation, and mentorship.

Rankin and Ruggles reflect on their individual paths into clay and how they evolved as a partnership with a shared practice shaped by place, labor, and a long-term commitment to craft. The conversation explores wood firing, material sourcing, and the rhythms of making that come from working in a close relationship with the land. We share this episode in remembrance of Douglass Rankin, who passed away after the recording in 2022. Her generosity, depth of knowledge, and dedication to the field continue to resonate through her work, her teaching, and the many lives she touched.

For this episode and contemporary audio, I sat down, remotely, with Richard Notkin on November 13, 2025, for an extended conversation about his life in clay and the principles that have fueled his practice.

Notkin, who has spent nearly sixty years making work that confronts war, challenges the failures of human leadership, and probes humanity’s fragile relationship with the environment, speaks with the clarity of someone who has never separated his artistry from his ethics. With characteristic frankness, he traces the events that shaped his worldview – from Cold War tensions, to the Vietnam era, to today’s global instability. What follows is a masterclass about art as conscience and craftsmanship as conviction. This interview captures an artist looking backward, forward, and unflinchingly at the present.