The work of local artist and pottery professor TR Steiner is now on display at Ten Thousand Villages, 115 S. Main St.

Born and raised in Northwest Ohio on the family farm, Steiner graduated from the University of Findlay, and later started a business called The Old Jalopy Pottery. Since 2016, TR has been the ceramics professor at Bluffton University. He has shown and sold his work at many exhibitions, art fairs, shops, and galleries, and conducts the annual Summer Mud Workshop at Bluffton University. 

Steiner’s was awarded Ohio Designer Craftsmen “Best of” 2022 and 2023 by the Ohio Craft Museum and in 2023 was pictured in Ceramics Monthly Magazine. ▶︎

About his abstract teapots, Steiner writes: I use the teapot’s form, with all its commonly conceived notions of function, etiquette, and tradition—then redirecting those notions with the goal of blurring the lines between the vessel’s purposeful function and becoming an art object. 

“My intent as a maker is to use an improvisational approach, drawing from my emotions and life’s experiences, emphasizing the touch of the hand, the properties of the clay, and the chaos of the fire. By working from this philosophy, I hope to create pots that are visually challenging yet instinctively natural, with no doubt they are made by my two hands from the material gifts of this world.

“TR Steiner’s work fits in beautifully with the artisan products we sell at the store,” says Ten Thousand Villages manager Wendy Chappell-Dick, “many of which are handmade.”

Steiner’s works will be on display through the downtown Holiday Open House November 1-2.