By Craig Moorehead
Special correspondent for The Argus
About ten years ago, Nate and Hallie Evans were working for a well known potter in North Carolina. The Smithsonian magazine had sent a crew out to do a story about the firing of the huge wood fired kiln. Partway through the firing, disaster struck. Inside the kiln, some of the tightly stacked pottery had fallen. Thousands of dollars worth of artistic pottery were breaking up inside the kiln. “We just had to keep smiling and acting as though nothing was wrong”, said Nate. “But we couldn’t feed the pieces of wood in because it was collapsed inside…the man who ran the pottery was probably losing his mind.“ In the wood fired pottery business, these things happen.
Nate and Hallie met while attending Luther College in Decorah. They discovered their mutual love of the art of pottery and eventually married. Upon graduation they moved to North Carolina where they served a two year apprenticeship with a master potter. Upon completion of this training, they returned to the Midwest, eventually settling in northern Iowa where they began their own wood fired pottery business, selling their first pot in October of 2000.
They learned the folk tradition of wood firing while working in North Carolina. This demanding and labor-intensive process produces unique surfaces, tones and finishes. Each piece that comes from the kiln has its own distinctive look. This comes from the complex relationship between the movement of hot gasses and ashes from the fire through the pottery and the glazed and unglazed surfaces .
Nate and Hallie fire the kiln to 2400 degrees. This extreme temperature causes all of their work to be “functional” meaning that all the pieces, both glazed and unglazed, are impervious to moisture. As if to prove this point, they have left some large decorative pots outdoors all winter. The pots come through it all without a crack, even though some of them are filled with dirt.
The functional aspect is an important part of their philosophy. Nate and Hallie produce pottery with their own distinctive style, but they tell me their work is influenced by many types of folk traditions. These folk traditions come from all over the world and as far back in time as pottery has been produced. So besides the aesthetic beauty of a piece, form will follow function. That means you can go to a museum and see a pot from ancient Greece that will look a lot like what our young couple are producing today. As Nate said to me, “We’re not going to a museum of modern art, (to draw inspiration) we like to draw on folk traditions, even though some of our work is very modern. What we like is the strength and honesty of form that you find in folk pottery.
 The kiln at Allamakee Pottery, while not as large as the one in Carolina, is large enough that it takes about two or three days to load, two days to dry (with a small fire), two more days to bring up to temperature, a couple days to stabilize and burn off any embers, two and a half days to cool gradually, and a couple more days to unload and wash all the ash and spent embers from the pieces. That’s a lot of work, since the kiln must be watched through much of the process on an around-the-clock basis.
Is it all worth it? The Evans’ think so. (Nate) “We definitely know that we’re lucky to be able to do what we love doing…to be able to make a living at it. Every year we kind of wonder if we’re going to have enough money to get through the winter… (Hallie) and every year we kind of barely scrape by, but we’re able to do it. We’ve been doing this full time now for eight years…(Nate) It’s definitely progressing.”
The fruits of their labor must be seen to be appreciated. A good time to do that is coming up during the 8th Annual Bluff Country Studio Art Tour coming up Apr. 25-27. This spring’s edition includes 27 galleries and artists from Winona to Lanesboro to Hokah and Brownsville to New Albin and everywhere in between. Information on the tour is available at www.bluffcountryarttour.com or call toll free 800-428-2030. The Evans’ will be open for visitors during the event and will be firing the kiln that weekend. Check their webpage at www.allamakeewoodfiredpottery.com for more details. Nate and Hallie can also be reached at 563-544-4378.
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