He once worked in the pharmaceutical industry. But when Bob Morris retired from that career, he found a new calling. And it’s a calling Morris says is like a pull that keeps bringing him back to his studio, Whirling Arts Pottery, in the Park Trades Center in downtown Kalamazoo. There, he works with a unique glaze that makes his ceramics stand out from others.
“I’ve been drawn to crystalline glazes because they are a little bit different,” Morris says. “And not too many potters work with them. They present some specific challenges because the glaze is actually mobile at temperature—it runs down the piece in the kiln. That can present some real problems, so you have to prepare a base for each piece that fits it exactly, and you have to put that whole assembly into a catch-basin.”
Regardless of its challenges, Morris favors the unique glaze and uses it on nearly all his pieces. The usual color tone becomes the sea green and blue for which he is known.
Before working at the potter’s wheel, Morris says his career was in the pharmaceutical industry.
“I retired some time back,” he says. “I was looking for other things to do. I had always wanted to try pottery. I found myself in the KVCC program. It has been like a second career. Actually, it’s been more like a calling.”
Morris opened his own studio in the Park Trades Center about 15 years ago. “I can’t wait to get into it,” Morris says.
It was his wife, Sally, who gave the studio its name—Whirling Arts Pottery. Now, people who come in looking for pottery also find a quote board where he pins up sayings that catch his interest. Some speak wise words while others inspire laughter.
“I’m not exactly sure how it started,” Morris says. “I wonder about a lot of things. I post things on the board that I hear or see and that make me think. The quotes range from Greek philosophers to bumper stickers.”
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