Whitewater, WI ARTIST STATEMENTI became serious about making pottery in the early 1970's after beginning my career in art history. The plasticity of the material and the rhythmic process of forming pots on the wheel drew me in. For me, pottery seemed to be very much about movement, rhythm, and gesture. The fact that pots could also be used in daily life was a big bonus, providing a manner of meaningful communication within a domestic setting. I was taken with the idea that straightforward pots made simply and quickly could speak in an authentic and extraordinary way. While this approach to making pottery is still valid and meaningful to me, I have recently been developing applied patterns with wax resist and layered glazes. A recent trip to China has also piqued my interest in porcelain and celadon glazes. While I had worked with clay in a sculptural manner early in my ceramic education, my interests in hand-built form became serious in the late 1980's, when I began to make coiled, stoneware sculpture. Since then, I have continued to make both pottery and sculpture, extending my interests into the wood-firing process as well as into earthenware with terra sigillata slips. BIOGRAPHYRick Hintze was born in 1944 in Peoria, Illinois. He received a B.A. in Art from Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, an M.A. in Art History from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, and an M.F.A. in Ceramics from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. After teaching ceramics and sculpture at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during the 1990's, he moved to Wisconsin to establish his studio in Johnson Creek and opened his gallery in the fall of 2002. Over the years he has received numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, an Iowa Arts Council Artist Project Grant, and an Award of Excellence from the American Craft Council. His work is in the collections of the Racine Art Museum, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, Southeastern Louisiana University, Ripon College, Kirkwood Community College, The China Zisha Museum in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, and various regional and national private collections.