| Cary Hulin | ||
| Birth Date: 1962 |
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Artist Gallery |
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| Cary Hulin is a native of central Illinois and attended Bradley University as a geology student. He recalls that interest lasted until the second semester of his freshman year when he took a beginning ceramics class, got his hands into some clay and never looked back.
After I did that, geology was dead. Pottery completely connected with me, Hulin remembers. This did not connect with my parents, who feared for their son’s future in a non-traditional profession; throwing his ego out the door. But three months before graduating, Hulin had a job lined up with the Rockdale Union Stoneware Company of Cambridge, Wisconsin, throwing pottery at a piece rate. I went from being the best potjocks at Bradley to being only very average at Rockdale – surrounded by expert pot throwers I had to check my ego at the door and compete head on in order to survive.
Three years later he had moved up the ladder to head potter, overseeing 60 workers. But, Hulin said, he chucked the position away when he got an opportunity to apprentice under Todd Piker at the Cornwall Bridge Pottery in Connecticut. He said the Rockdale job enabled him to learn pottery techniques and the market end of the business, but the opportunity to apprentice with someone who was considered one of the worlds’ best potters was too good to pass up. After apprenticing with Pike for four years and having the opportunity to “work shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the world’s top potters” – but making little money – Hulin signed a two year contract to work for the Westerwald Pottery in Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania.
In 1993, Hulin and his wife Elaine (a printmaker with an MFA from Columbus College of Art and Design) placed an advertisement in Ohio Magazine, describing their goals and saying they were looking for a community in which to locate their business. They received responses from Piqua, Yellow Springs, Zoar and Holmes County. Hulin said the couple’s final decision was driven by the presence of numerous nearby sawmills, giving them ready access to the huge amount of wood they would need to fire their hillside kiln. He said initially they worried their pottery was located too far outside the convenient tourist traffic. They have since become pleasantly surprised that those who seek them out are more often than not serious buyers, attracted by the uniqueness of their product. The Holmes County Pottery does three firings a year, each consisting of between 1,500 to 2,500 pieces that range from custom orders to the pottery’s bread and butter items that customers expect to find.
Hulin credits Elaine with being the sole foundation for the business. "There would have been no way to achieve what’s been done here without Elaine’s help," Hulin said. "Adding some of the outstanding pieces my wife has decorated and I have kept are the dearest things I have. Being able to work with my wife every day provides an unsurpassed specialness in life."
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