It's spring here in the North Carolina mountains, a last good time for a fire in the fireplace. Gazing at the fire, I'm looking back on 80 years of life on this amazing earth, 47 years in which it has been my great privilege to earn a living making pottery.

I love it when people sing together, laugh together, show me the pictures in their wallets... I feel a yearning for the wonderful side of human nature that I cannot explain, but when it appears in an occasional piece that I have made, it's a good, good, day in the studio.

-Jane Peiser