Carolyn Janet Efner

Being a curmudgeon, I'll skip the usual "talking to the clay -- letting the clay talk to me" spiel. I make pots so I can hand shape the final curves and play with glazes. Crystal glazes are tricky so firing them is a gamble. On taking the pots out of the kiln into the sunshine -- it can be Christmas morning or an oh-*#!!.

Before moving to Santa Fe, I sold hand-built pottery at the Bartlesville, Oklahoma, OK Mozart festival gift shop. Now I throw pots and mix my own crystal glazes. I am taking some clay courses at Santa Fe Community College and have enjoyed selling at their pottery shows. I find it interesting that so many people don't know about crystal glazes.

My assistants are: my daughter, Louisa, who is my website guru and has a knack for picking colorants in our hand made glazes and enjoys occasionally painting designs on my pots; and my husband, Howard, a retired chemist, who is a mechanical genius at getting my two programmable kilns to work. I am also a retired computer programmer, gardener, photographer and cook.