Ceramic artist Dan Quatro often gets his inspiration from functional potters from North Carolina to Minnesota whose roots are deep in Mingei, a folk art movement in Japan dating to the 1920s to distinguish ordinary crafts and functional utensils from "higher" forms of art.
"I want my pots to be approachable and useful," Dan says. "I am transfixed by the interplay of form and surface. I find the interaction of the clay and slips fired in a high fire soda atmosphere to be exhilarating."