I was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and I do know from what my parents tell me that I was always interested in art, although not very good at it.

[Sculpturing] didn't stick with me. I never felt I wanted to go on with that.

There were a lot of artists in St. Ives. In fact, since the time of Whistler, St. Ives has been noted as an artist colony.

In looking at these pots at the Field Museum, Alix [MacKenzie] and I both came to a conclusion individually but also collectively that the pots that really interested us were the pots that people had used in their everyday life, and we began to think - I mean, whether it was ancient Greece or Africa or Europe or wherever, the pots that people had used in their homes were the ones that excited us.

I'm striving to make things which are the most exciting things I can make that will fit in people's homes. And in that respect, working on the wheel is economically about the only answer I know, because one can, as Leach said, make 50 pots in a day. You can make 100 pots in a day. A really good potter can make 400 pots in a day.

[I made in army] all sorts of dumb things, but it did teach me a lot about the silk-screen process.

These narrow-footed forms I was making, I thought, gosh, I could push those further, not to construct them the way [Hans] Coper did but to work in my own manner but push it more toward that form. And I learned to do that and enjoyed it for a number of years.