If it can be made out of clay, Jim and Betsy Anderson will do it.A tour through the showroom of Farmhouse Stoneware in Munson Township…
If it can be made out of clay, Jim and Betsy Anderson will do it.
A tour through the showroom of Farmhouse Stoneware in Munson Township proves there isn’t much in the way of pottery they don’t have for sale.
From chicken roasters to butter chillers to business card holders, the Andersons create, produce, glaze, fire and sell it in the converted dairy barn on state Route 44, just south of Mayfield Road.
Jim mans the wheel in the clay-splattered workshop beside the sales room.
Betsy creates intricate baking stones, slump bowls and platters that don’t need to be turned, and glazes many of Jim’s pieces. She also markets the business.
Farmhouse Stoneware has been a family operation since Andersons’ wedding day 37 years ago.
“Betsy got me a kiln as a wedding gift,” Jim recalls.
“I was telling him I was going to let him do this,” Betsy said.
They built the business for many years while Betsy taught music to Chardon middle and elementary school students and Jim worked as librarian at Chardon Public Library.
Jim was late in evolving into a potter. It wasn’t until his last semester at Mount Union College that he happened to squeeze an elective art class into his math-major schedule.
It was love at first throw.
“I don’t remember a thing about numerical analysis,” he said, but he does bless the instructor who gave him free run of the college art studio so he could work on the potter’s wheel.
“That last semester, I was in the studio four hours a day,” he said.
In fact, his real interest was music, but his parents thought math might be a better career path. Still, he kept his hand in and, while singing in the Cleveland Orchestra chorus, met Betsy.
He went on to get his M.S. in library science and worked at the Chardon library when a patron told him about a potter’s wheel available at Century Village Museum in Burton Village. He bought it and his focus changed.
“A hobby? It quickly was not,” he said.
Andersons married and had three children. As they grew, Jim continued with his music as choir director at the Chardon Methodist Church. They worked on the pottery business as time allowed.
But he remembers his life plan and what he told himself.
“‘When I retire, I will become a potter,'” he said.
And then he hit his 40s.
“I knew I couldn’t wait. In the spring of ’92, I made a commitment to be His potter,” Jim said. “I honestly think that God called me to do it.”
No change in midstream is ever smooth. He had a responsible job, mouths to feed and a wife to convince.
“I told Betsy. She cried for a couple of weeks,” he said.
But he pursued his dream, working with his banker.
“We sat down and we crunched numbers,” Jim said, adding he developed a business plan before he gave notice at the library.
“We found this place in January of ’93 and I became a full-time potter,” he said.
He wasn’t starting from scratch.
He and Betsy had been growing the business slowly, taking their wares to shows and holding home parties. They knew their products were useful and priced to buy, not to mention well-crafted and beautiful.
“We started Farmhouse Stoneware together,” Betsy said, adding it was him on the wheel and her taking care of the marketing and scheduling.
She learned to glaze his pots and to create her own line.
The different designs give the showroom texture, while the consistent hues create cohesion.
Betsy retired from teaching last year and, as a stay-at-home mom, now is able to do more parties and help more in the shop.
But their children, who staffed in the store and set up at shows, have not shown any desire to carry on in the pottery shed.
“They have to find their passions on their own,” Jim said.
Instead, he gives one-on-one lessons and has a couple of students who are in friendly competition with him in the marketplace.
“‘Retirement’ was the healthiest thing I’ve ever done,” he said.
Betsy is also in charge of the website, www.farmhousestoneware.com, and said they are having a pre-holiday open house at the shop, 12480 Ravenna Road, Munson Township, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Saturday until Christmas and 1-5 p.m. every Sunday until Christmas.
