Harald Eric Nordvold

I used to think of myself as “self-taught.” I now believe there is no such thing. We learn from everyone around us and everything we experience, books, travel, the ever-changing natural world around us. When I started making pottery in 1970 there was no YouTube to look up information and very few pottery instruction books. Also no bottled glazes or clay that fit my needs at the supply outlets. I needed to figure it all out myself. I was lucky that I lived in the Bay Area where many good functional potters worked. I marveled at the work they produced and challenged myself to not copy the work but absorb the nuances of the pottery, and then attempt to make my work individual and pleasing to me. I have always loved the shapes of pots made on a potter's wheel so I worked on forms that pleased me in both balance and function. I built my kiln and mixed my own clay. Traveling to England and seeing the pottery in the Victoria and Albert Museum made me realize the glazes are the skin that gives a pot life. I loved the Asian high-fired pottery with copper red, Chun Blues, celadon, temaku, and ash glazes. There were no potters dong glazes like these so I did hundreds of test firings.  My work is fired in a gas kiln built and designed myself.  The firings, glazes, and shapes are all very important to me as they are what make my work uniquely my own. It makes me happy when people tell me they enjoy using my pottery and it adds something to their surroundings. I have been a very lucky person to have had the strength and good health to work on my craft for more years than I wish to admit.