For the month of July, Maine Potters Market features the recent work of Fireside Pottery’s Nancy Button. Nancy is known for her richly textured functional pieces. She uses a slab technique, with textured surfaces created by handmade stamps as well as rope, tree bark and anything else that looks like it might make an interesting impression. Her reduction-fired wares are enhanced by glazes that accentuate that texture. Though her pieces are sometimes narrative (as in her mugs with chickens and eggs), many of them speak to us in a quiet language of form and design. She states that “Texturing the slabs is like leaving modern petroglyphs for the next person to read. My intent is to evoke emotion and memory, reminding us of the natural rhythms that measure our lives.”
ABOUT NANCY BUTTON — Nancy was introduced to pottery at an early age through her mother, who instilled in her a curiosity about the possibilities of clay. Her lifelong relationship to clay continues to be, like all good relationships, challenging in the best ways, and deeply satisfying. She hopes that her functional pieces will find their ways into homes where they will enhance the rituals of daily life.
