Meet the Artist: Brinton Baker

The potter Brinton Baker’s’s main goal is to breathe some of his life into the clay he fashions into three-dimensional forms.  After taking a ceramics class during college he immediately felt a freedom to express himself within a disciplined form of creativity.  This led Baker to a full time pottery apprenticeship in Japan with a master potter from Feb 1986 – Aug 1990.  His four and a half years’ pottery apprenticeship with Koichi Yamamoto in Kumamoto, Japan constitutes the base for his work with clay.  This traditional apprenticeship process of developing a deep skill set of ceramic forming processes has enabled his creative energy to bloom.  Baker is drawn to fabricating simple designs and shapes as well as creating motifs and forms that will hopefully put a smile on your face.  He is influenced by the natural world and human civilization.  Humor is his tonic for overcoming human struggle.  He also hopes that his work continues to create deepening pleasure for the viewer/user over time.  He strives for understated simplicity in form and design.  His late mother Cornelia D. Baker’s work as a printmaker has inspired him for many years.  Baker has led numerous workshops over the past 25 years and offers ongoing classes and workshops in his Stone Window Gallery studio in Accord, NY.  He just completed teaching a series of classes at the Byrdcliffe Barn’s ceramic studio in Woodstock during the summer of 2013.  Follow him at  www.facebook.com/StoneWindowGallery.