Cary and Elaine Hulin: Pastoral potters

Cary Hulin was a freshman at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. studying geology when he decided to take a break from his more academic classes. He was looking for an easy credit, so he enrolled in a pottery class.

"I figured it would be like taking bowling, something to help me unwind."

Instead, the class molded him for a new career path. Hulin was so smitten by the course that he dropped geology and picked up ceramics, in spite of his parents' concern that he wouldn't be able to make a living as a potter. But after graduating with a bachelor's degree of fine arts in ceramics, he landed a job with a large manufacturer in Wisconsin and within three years became the company's lead potter, a position where Hulin could definitely have made a living.

"It was a great job from a career perspective. Full benefits, paid vacation, the whole bit. But it was a factory approach to making pottery, and I was just dying there."

Having honed the speed and efficiency he would continue to use throughout his career, Hulin said goodbye to factory work and he and his wife, Elaine, headed to Connecticut, where he apprenticed under respected studio potter Todd Piker, a two-year commitment which stretched into a four-year lifelong learning experience.

"We lived in a little cabin with our Labrador retriever and were only making a little spending money, but it was where we wanted to be," said Hulin, whose apprenticeship with Piker took him to small European villages where he observed dozens of potters working in the same tradition Hulin was studying.

Now Hulin works with the earth, just as he had originally set out to do, shaping practical pieces of pottery in the couple's Big Prairie studio using a recipe consisting mostly of Ohio clay taken from the same deposits that have been mined to make pottery for more than 150 years.

"It's a pretty old-world method. The type of kiln we use dates back a thousand years, and the way we mix and fire our pottery is very in line with that time period," Hulin said, describing the process the husband and wife team employ to create each hand-thrown, wood-fired creation, beginning with a slurry mixed in batches just outside the workshop, then formed, air-dried and glazed in the studio only a few yards from where the pieces are fired in a kiln built 15 years ago by Hulin using more than 10,000 firebricks, the largest of its kind in Ohio. The pieces are then displayed for sale in the same studio where they were thrown. The whole process literally takes place in the Hulins' backyard, which overlooks a bucolic scene of rolling hills and lush pastures.

The Hulins said they had considered several locations for their studio and workshop, but eventually landed in Holmes County 17 years ago partly because Elaine Hulin had family in the area. The big draw, however, was that there was ready access to wood ends due to the large number of sawmills close by, a component necessary for the wood firing process. Thus, Holmes County Pottery was born.

The rural location provides the Hulins with a peaceful work environment but doesn't deter pottery lovers from seeking them out, especially during their kiln openings which are held three times a year when the Hulins fire up the kiln, fill it with three months' worth of pieces (more than two and a half tons of clay), and employ the help of several friends and neighbors to oversee the three-day firing process. Once the kiln is opened, the bowls, plates, mugs, birdhouses, birdfeeders and other functional pieces emerge, fired and changed, the unique iron content of the clay producing the flashing earth tones Hulin strives to produce, the glazes adorning the pieces with striking white and cobalt patterns that balance beautifully with the unglazed stoneware. Once the pieces are displayed in the showroom, the Hulins host an open house, drawing fans from near and far.

"Folks come from all over Ohio, but also from Chicago, New York and the Jersey shore. We've come to build a relationship with a lot of them. They send us Christmas cards and visit every year."

The Hulins insisted that they didn't really construct this business plan, but that, rather, it kind of happened to them. Whatever the method they used to arrive here, it's definitely working, and they're pleased with the results. After all these years as a potter, Cary Hulin still loves what he does and considers his business a success.

"I've spent 26 years making a living as a potter," Hulin said, surrounded by hundreds of the pieces he and Elaine Hulin have created. "I'm a clay bum. It's all I've ever done."

Holmes County Pottery is located at 8500 County Road 373, Big Prairie 44611. For more information, call the Hulins at 330-496-2406 or email hcpottery@valkyrie.net.