Novembert 2025 3-D Featured Artist Joe Mayhew

Joe Mayhew is a potter, inspired by his love for both Bonsai horticulture, and for food. (Joe is a classically trained Chef!)

From his love of bonsai, Joe is inspired to make beautiful vessels for the plants. Just as bonsai is a specialty field, so is the pottery it holds – call Ikebena, which are Western vases and planters.

From his love of food, Joe is inspired to make artful serving platters and bowls as well as
drinking vessels such as coffee mugs, steins, whiskey cups and flasks.

Joe primarily uses 2 finishes for his work. His work is finished in either “microcrystalline glazes” or the “Horsehair” technique.

Microcrystalline glazes are sprayed in layers, then fired under carefully regulated time and
temperature. The results are beautiful micro crystals that feather and blend together in brilliant colors.

And the second is the Horsehair technique, which is a very old Native American technique.
Before a battle, hair would be taken from favored horses to memorialize them. Hair was drizzled on pottery, then fired, where it fused with the pottery, forming a unique and often dramatic pattern.

Joe finds sitting behind the potter’s wheel to be very satisfying creatively, as well as therapeutic.

As they say in the “clay community”, you center the clay and the clay centers you.