Artisan Profile

Rick and Nancy Hilborn established Hilborn Pottery Design creating original wheel thrown and handbuilt clay products of exceptional function and form. Nancy: I first
dug some clay at the cottage and made a wobbly pot on a wheel engineered from an old turn table. I became intrigued. After university, I pursued clay in earnest and my husband and I bought an old winery in 1982 in downtown Cambridge where we have raised our three kids and made lots of pots.

Born and raised in Toronto and educated at the University of Waterloo (B.A.) and the Ontario College of Art in Toronto.
I worked solely on the wheel for about five years and then became enchanted with sculptural hand building, which I do to this day. I enjoy the freedom of twisting, bending, squeezing, slapping and curling the clay into shapes that are fluid and balanced. I like to texture the soft slabs of clay and generally I use a fine buff stoneware body because it allows me to manipulate the clay without the technical problems that occur with a finer body.
For me, glazing is all about colour. I like to create soft and subtle tones that have depth. To achieve this I like to use a combination of raw metallic oxides rather that stains to give the glazes interest, either a mottled effect or a smooth matte finish. I then usually accent the pieces with brushwork, stippling or trailing with over glaze or washes in an abstract or derived pattern.
I love clay. It is an evolving, exciting and occasionally frustrating journey that has continued for over thirty years.