I started working in clay when I was 19 years old and visiting friends in England. Potting proved an immediate and powerful addiction. Within six months of making my first pot, I had enrolled in the Harrow Studio Pottery Course, a full-time intensive training course near London. While not in school, I worked in potteries in England and Ireland. After returning to the U.S. in 1972, I potted in a studio in Crozet, Virginia. I also taught pottery at Piedmont Community College, for the City of Charlottesville, and in private classes.

I am married to Carter Smith and we have two grown children – Alan and Rachel. We have lived in Nelson County since 1978, where we built and lived in my studio for several years. As our need for space expanded, we built a house. The original living space in my studio now houses the pottery classroom.

I took a break from potting while our kids were small. But except for that break, I have made functional pottery all my adult life. For most of my career, all my pots were salt glazed. Recently, when I had to stop salting my old kiln, I learned to work with cone ten reduction glazes. A salt kiln does much of the decorative work for the potter – change and variety depend on where and how the salt fumes hit the work. I have enjoyed learning how to create that kind of variety using regular glazes. Firing carbon-trap shino glaze is like firing salt, in that success depends largely on interaction with the flame. Location in the kiln, subtle changes in kiln atmosphere and a healthy dose of luck all effect carbon-trapping.

Now I have the best of all pottery worlds, with both a reduction and a salt kiln on site, plus occasional access to firing with wood.  My friend Kevin Crowe and

I fire together regularly – I bisque fire some of his work and help him load his kiln. In exchange, he includes some of my pots in his wood firings. Since firing with Kevin, I've come to appreciate the way wood firing extends the variety and serendipity of kiln effects even beyond those of my own two kilns’ salt or carbon-trap shino. In wood firing, ash and extreme heat transform the edges and corners of forms in subtle ways.

For the past several years, I have taught regular weekly classes plus occasional workshops in my studio. I find teaching valuable, as it forces me to examine my processes and visual decisions. Having to explain keeps me questioning why I do things the way I do. I try new techniques and forms as I respond to my students’ queries. Like firing with Kevin, teaching is an exhilarating exchange – one that challenges my set ways of doing things. As someone who has made pots in relative rural isolation for many years, I feel immensely grateful for both these sources of energy and ideas.

I'm a charter member of the Potters Council, and am on the Council’s Board – another potential source of interaction and inspiration.   I was a founding member of Spruce Creek Gallery, a Fine Art and Craft Gallery in the Old Wintergreen Country Store in Nellysford, Virginia. Although I no longer own part of Spruce Creek, I am still actively engaged in its events and activities.

I am also actively involved with the Artisans Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, and am an associate member of the McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville. As of January 2007, I have opened a showroom in my studio and set up an online marketing venture at Nan Rothwell Online Store.