12/10/2009 3:45:00 PM Spend It Here: Part 10 Made in Jerome Pottery as local as local can be
VVN/Jon Pelletier
For 37 years, Made in Jerome Pottery owner David Hall has been producing unique pottery pieces made from the sticky red clay he mines from outcroppings in and around the area. His "functional" pieces have built a loyal following around the world.
An accomplished painter before she became a potter, Jane Moore's creations run the gamut of designs from contemporary southwest, to traditional and ancient Indian designs, to the whimsical.
JEROME - It has been almost 40 years since Dave Hall, an art student at Northern Arizona University, first decided to make a living amongst the ghostly remains of what was once Arizona's third largest city.
A starving artist committed to proving he could make his way in the world as a potter, Hall says he knew from the start that he and Jerome were meant for each other.
"I thought then it was the perfect place, and I still feel that way today," he says.
Hall's pottery business, Made in Jerome Pottery, like the town, has morphed several times in the 37 years since it began.
And like the town, the business has remained quintessentially linked to the Black Hills, from which they have both derived a living.
For the town and its mines, the Black Hills offered the copper rich blue-green ores from deep within Cleopatra Hill. For Hall it has been the sticky red clay.
"It's been a matter of trial and error from the beginning. But I have learned that mixed right, the local clays are dense and hard and have good working characteristics. The final product is excellent," he says.
Over the years, Made in Jerome Pottery has been fired in kilns made from bricks that once fired the copper smelters, experimented with in a variety of different ways by a dozen or more individual potters and in the process have built a loyal following of customers from throughout the world.
Today, Hall works with fellow potter Jane Moore to produce unique designs made from Mingus Mountain's unique clays, fired in environmentally friendly modern kilns and made in workshop where fun remains a key element in the final product.
"I have always believed in having fun," Hall says. "You are never going to make enough money, so you might as well be having fun."
But being unique and fun are not the only things that make Made in Jerome Pottery a good idea when it comes to Christmas shopping.
"I have always thought that what we make should be something that someone would use. We make it affordable, lead free, dishwasher safe, microwave and oven safe. The whole idea is to make something usable in everyday life. And have fun," Hall says.
In addition to Hall and Moore's creations, Jerome Pottery also offers an array of pottery and other gift items, all made by Arizona artists, most of them from Jerome and the Verde Valley.
"I'm a humble craftsman and have always tried to help others like me. We operate the store as a kind of co-op, just not in the legal sense," Hall says. "There is always someone around to fill in when I want a day off."
Among the other treasures available on the front room shelves are pottery from Jerome artist Hanna Flagg and Clarkdale potter Tom Evens.
Their are some inlaid wooden boxes from Camp Verde artist John Donald and a limited number of southwest jewelry pieces form Navajo jewelers. You can even pick up a music CD from Jerome Town Attorney Kathleen Williamson.
"We are as local as you can get," Hall says. "You are not going to get much more local. But we can ship anywhere in the world."
