We both [with Alixandra Kolesky MacKenzie] got into ceramics, you might say, by the back door. Looking back on it, I think this was a very good thing.

The interesting thing was we never talked about pottery. Bernard [Leach] talked about social issues; he talked about the world political situation, he talked about the economy, he talked about all kinds of things.

If you take Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, their work didn't even relate to what we were trying to do, because they were moving in a different direction, both of them coming out of Europe and the Viennese school of design, which Lucie came from, and Coper learning from Lucie and then springing off on his own when she encouraged him to explore more widely. So he created his own work instead of just working for her and doing her forms. So that was a wonderful thing.

It was a wonderful opportunity. And so for two and a half years we lived with [Bernard] Leach.

If you didn't know what you were trying to do, [Robert von Neumann] wouldn't say a word. He would just turn and walk away. So you very quickly learned to think that you'd better be attempting to do something in that painting class.

Robert von Neumann taught painting, and when I finally got into a painting class of his, he reacted in much the same way.

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.