Nafziger - "Fan Grid Floor Vase" and "Fan Grid"- Brown stoneware vase and platter with fan grid pattern

Mark Nafziger • Ohio (b: 1957)

Fan Grid Floor Vase (L) C: 2005 • Stoneware 22 1/2" x 12" x 12"
Fan Grid (R) C: 1999 • Stoneware 16" Dia.

Mark Nafziger is connected. Not in terms of who he knows, but rather how he lives. For 35 years he has worked as a “continuing tradesman” at historic Sauder Village in northwestern Ohio. “I can’t deny thousands of years of influence. But a potter working 500 years ago was making pots that responded to the demands of his time. I’m continuing the tradition and connecting it to the demands of today.” Connections matter.

As Mark Nafziger sits in his studio, he is less than 2 miles from the Archbold farm where he grew up. Now a grandfather, he owns a section of the farm along Brush Creek that lends its name to his pottery studio, Connections.

He never really left Archbold, returning after college, with a new wife and newfound love for the potter’s craft. Sauder Village, the dream of a local businessman, was just getting started. Enter Mark Nafziger, local boy looking to be a potter. He never left.

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So, from Spring to Fall, Mark Nafziger captivates a changing audience of tourists, customers and other visitors with banter and pottery-making at its’ finest. Brush Creek Pottery’s walls and tables are filled with the richly detailed ceramics he turns out with the self-assured movements of someone who’s been doing the same thing for over 100,000 days. He decorates his work with rich glazes and “slip trails”, an old technique used on traditional English, American and Japanese pots. Connections.

He loves geometric patterns he can play with, exploring how forms and patterns relate. “A bit like jazz where you have certain chord structure, but you play within the sequence to create the music.” Connections.

Visitors to the studio find a personable craftsman who loves to talk and show people how pottery is made. He often gets lost in his work and ponders the mysteries of life, like where he came from and where he’s going, before deciding to let the mysteries be.

He’s the apple that fell on flat ground and put down deep roots, connecting himself to the rich clay vein running through Ohio, and reaching up to the mysteries of the world above. Connected to everything he touches, studies and dreams.

“I’ve been making pots a long time and have things all around the world and people are using them in some capacity. It’s a humbling thought, it is.”

Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection • Purchased with funds from the Doran Foundation
& in the Memory of Edward & Rosa J. Langenbach, 2007.4 (L) & 999.7 (R)

4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art

1.
“As a ‘Continuing Craftsman’ in Sauder Village, near Archbold, Ohio, he continues the traditional pottery arts and takes them into modern times.”

2.
“He recently completed a stunning ceramic installation in an Ohio hospital that visually connects the natural and spiritual worlds. Science and mystery bump together.”

3.
“He loves to play with geometric patterns in the manner of a jazz musician exploring musical patterns. And, yes, he plays in a band””

4.
“He is widely acknowledged to be a master of slip trailing, an old ceramics technique that gives dimension to surface decorations.”

Nafziger Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.

1957

Born in Archbold, a small northwestern Ohio town. His mother was a homemaker who eventually returned to her nursing career. His father was banker who once worked for the state’s Bank Examiner office, but eventually ended up working at a local bank. Mark was the second oldest of 6 siblings and was raised on a farm 1-1/2 miles from his current studio.

1975

Graduated from high school where he had nurtured a lifelong interest in music by appearing in a variety of his school’s musicals. He intended to study math in college and pursue a career as a high school math teacher, but his future turned out to lay elsewhere.

1979

While still attending Goshen College, a small Mennonite-affiliated college in Goshen, Indiana, he met future wife Joyce. She was an art student and Mark credits his interest in her as one reason he gravitated to so many art classes. They married in 1979 and Mark worked a number of construction jobs to support themselves.

1981

He graduated from Goshen College with a major in art and a love of ceramics stoked by his teacher, Marvin Bartel. He and Joyce welcomed their first child, Jacinta. This was also the year he began his ceramics studio in Sauder Village, an historic development featuring artisans in a variety of traditional crafts, including spinning, glassblowing and woodcarving.

1983

An exciting year when he got to play Jesus Christ in the Archbold Community Theatre’s production of the Broadway musical, Godspell. The part did not go to his head, but certainly did affect his heart as the group became very close while doing a series of sold out performances. It is a time he remembers with great fondness.

1985

Youngest daughter, Fern was born. She grew up to become an Exhibit Designer at the Cincinnati Museum of Art.

1995

Mark was the subject of a cover story in the renowned magazine, Ceramics Monthly.

1999

His work was selected for a high-profile ceramics exhibit at the Canton Museum of Art and two of his pieces were purchased for the museum’s Permanent Collection.

2000

Bill Hunt (ARTe 6-8-15), former Editor of Ceramics Monthly, curated a major ceramics exhibition, titled: 21st Century Ceramics at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Mark’s work was included and he recalled it as a “very cool thing, because it was like a Who’s Who of ceramicists in America.”

2012

The Williams County Health Center in Bryan, Ohio, commissioned Mark to create a major ceramic mural. His piece connected science with the mysteries of the physical and spiritual world in a way that could only be done by an artist with a scientific mindset and a precise artistic vision.