User:Valfontis/Bennett Welsh

Bennett Welsh (1922-1998) was an American potter from Oregon.

Born and raised in Gresham, Oregon, Bennett Welsh was one of the first potters in the Pacific Northwest to work with high temperature stoneware clays. He had a vast technical knowledge and he shared this with hundreds potters who were his students, employees and friends during his 50 year career in clay.

Welsh began working with stoneware in the 1940s and founded the ceramics department at the Portland Art Museum's school (now called the Pacific Northwest College of Art), building most of the equipment himself. Welsh bought Pacific Stoneware, a production ceramics company making wheel-thrown pottery. Many Northwest potters learned their craft at Pacific Stoneware, which is no longer in existence. Its pottery is now considered a collectible. In the 1970s, Welsh started working in a smaller studio with a few employees. They made a production line of handmade stoneware. He officially "retired" from production in 1984, and made large, sculptural "art pots." He thought of himself as a decorator of pots, and he worked in his studio until the day before illness took him to the hospital in which he died.

Reference

 * http://www.oregonpotters.org/documents/newsletter/1998/Apr_1998_News.htm