More Background

More About Me In 1954 I set out on a trip that took me around the world in seven years. On a scholarship I first traveled to Denmark, where I spent two years as a guest artist at the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory. A year in Finland followed at the Arabia factory in Helsinki. I had an art studio there. Another scholarship permitted me to travel and study throughout Europe, the middle east, India, and Southeast Asia. Seven months later I arrived in Taiwan, where I was offered a job developing dinnerware for export. The ware was a unique product for it's time. Using native clays I taught the Chinese to produce some of the first stoneware dinnerware to come out on the market. In 1961 I returned to the US and with a native of Damascus, Virginia, Albert Mock, founded a factory in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, to manufacture hand crafted dinnerware, Iron Mountain Stoneware. Iron Mountain Stoneware, with my NP signature, was manufactureed until 1992. Joe Lamb, my husband and an engineer, worked with me for nearly thirty years. While I designed shapes with clay, created glazes and new dinnerware patterns, Joe took care of the rest of the business, the administration and the sales. He also fired the kilns. Our three children grew up making forts out of packing boxes and constructing their own dreams with clay. More about Good Earth Good Earth was begun in 1993. Painting with colorful ceramic glazes I decorate and refire ordinary red clay bricks and previously fired tiles. The colors are permanent indoors and outdoors. Decorative bricks are used for pathways, floors, garden walls, or any suitable building application. On paths or floor areas that may be slippery when wet or icy, I add a non-skid texture to the surface. I made a path from my house to the shop. (click to enlarge) In April of 1996 the Friendship Path was begun as a Damascus Town project. Personalized bricks are fired and placed in the sidewalk. An attractive focal point has been created in which residents past and present, Appalachian Trail hikers, visitors, businesses and events mingle and "tell" their stories. My decorated bricks are set between plain ones in sand, and new ones are continuously added. The sale of the personalized bricks finances the cost of the sidewalk, which is installed by volunteers. Anyone interested in a fund raising project for a community can call or email me for additional information. I am pictured here (click to enlarge) in a kitchen with nearly six hundred tiles made for Walter and Penny Hite of Washington County Virginia. Their log home is built on a farm with views in all directions of mountains, fields, and forests. The tiles depict activities on the farm and wild life that is also a part of the land. Veneer brick tiles 4 x 8 are mixed with glazed quarry tile 8 x 8 for the walls and counter tops. Photo courtesy of Jason Davis. Large 12" tiles are custom painted for house numbers and for signs that never need repainting because the colors are permanent. They are framed for ease in attaching to house or building. Four numbers are the maximum that will fit on a tile if the numbers are four inches high. If there are more than four numbers, they will be reduced in size to fit. (click to enlarge) An example of a framed 8" tile made for a baby gift. (click to enlarge)