Barbara Harnack and Michael Lancaster

Barbara Harnack and Michael Lancaster have shared a studio together for over 30 years. Married in 1981, they first began experimenting with studio collaborations from 1976 til 1980, while Harnack was at Parsons School of Design and Lancaster apprenticed at the Red Rock Pottery. In 1980 they founded the Malden Bridge Pottery, in Malden Bridge, NY. At the same time they helped found and operate The Malden Bridge Arts Center and the Woods Gallery. In 1987 they relocated to Northern New Mexico. There they had their only child, Amrit Lancaster. They eventually built Studio 98-B in Cerrillos, NM. The home studio compound has been featured in SuCasa and American Style magazines and acknowledged for its artistic design and green architecture.
They are best known for their style of Raku fired ceramic sculpture as well as their Raku collaborations in 'studio pottery'. Their work has been featured in Ceramics Monthly, Lark 500 Series: “500 Vases,” “500 Ceramic Sculptures,” “500 Raku.” Their technical knowledge has allowed them to be featured in the American Ceramic Society Hand Books “Raku, Pit & Barrel Firing,” and “Raku Firing, advanced Techniques.” They have shown their art coast to coast throughout the US and in Canada and Korea. They have works in private and public collections, such as The Santa Fe Museum of Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM, The International Ceramics Foundation, Icheon, Korea, The Dianne & Sandford Besser Collection, David & Colleen Bindly, Tom Aageson, Gary Kelly and many more noted private collections.

Barbara Harnack's images and sculptures are inspired by the natural beauty in humanity. Her intention is to empower the viewer to see the greatness in people, as they are. She hand builds her works, often from large slabs of clay and finds and reveals the life within. Michael Lancaster's artwork is inspired both by industrial objects as well as the great symmetrical aspects found in nature. He uses the potters wheel to make shapes that are then reworked and assembled, moving away from the look of pottery itself. Together Harnack & Lancaster are widely known for their collaborations which start with Lancaster's throwing and result in decorative pottery with Harnack's images surfaced and sometimes sculpted into them. Studio visits are welcome and encouraged. (address and contact info above). Representation can be found on their websites: