Richard Hess grew up in a small working class town in New Jersey where art in school or the community was mostly nonexistent. People worked hard in factories to put food on the table, and there was little time for much else.

Fortunately, Richard was able to go to college and picked Alfred University, a major force in American ceramics. He didn't know anything about pottery at the time but was always intrigued by the students who wore "mud" on their jeans. After a year, Richard Hess transferred from Alfred to Rutgers in Newark, NJ, studied history and spent his free time hanging around the one-person theater department. He thought he wanted to be an actor.

Richard Hess graduated from college, spent two years in the Army and landed in New York City. In addition to working various social service jobs, he took a pottery course in Greenwich Village with a woman who charged him $2 a week for individual lessons on the wheel. Richard was hooked. He loved clay and gradually drifted to handbuilding with slabs of clay. He took lessons in other studios in Manhattan but did not believe that he could make a living in clay.

Richard Hess taught at Little Red School House in New York City, went to graduate school, became the director of an alternative elementary school in Newark, New Jersey and finally realized that what he really wanted was to work with his hands. Richard decided to learn carpentry which he did for ten years on Long Island.

At the age of 50, Richard Hess moved to Ithaca, New York and decided that it was time to make pottery his life's career. In the beginning, he worked at night as a janitor at Cornell University to support his day job as a potter.  Richard did craft shows throughout the northeast and was eventually able to give up the night work and started to believe that he could make his living with his hands.

Richard Hess is now a full time potter living in Austin, Texas, doing that which gives him the most joy and excitement he has ever known in clay. Richard is delighted to share his work with you.