The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
As the last of winter’s sparse snow melts away and spring arrives, the men’s hockey league Perry Haas plays for is closing up its season. As a left wing forward in his 40s skating among 20-year-olds, Haas acts fast to set up his teammates. The fast-paced rhythmic nature of hockey, along with the precision, teamwork, and repetitive practice it requires, is core to many facets of his life, from wood firing to pottery making to family life.
Perry Haas is the facilities director at the Archie Bray Foundation (The Bray) in Helena, Montana, as well as an artist and a father. Playing his part on these various teams, Haas can be found at the Bray doing all manner of things from grading roads on a tractor to kiln maintenance, or at his home, gardening or helping his son Marko feed Spike, their new pet bearded dragon (which Perry and his wife, Iva Haas, describe as “growing way too quickly”).
Inspiration Through Life
Growing up in Geneva, Illinois, drawing was an entry point for him; he’d photograph graffiti to redraw, practicing the fluidity its forms required. Fluid movement served him in team sports, too. As a kid, Haas was recruited from a roller hockey tournament for an ice hockey team; his roller hockey skills gave him an edge among the other kids on the ice. Eventually, other kids caught up, and his advantage faded. But, he figured out how to stand out—his coaches described him as “smartest on the ice”—he knew where to be and how to set up his teammates.
Perry and his friends watched skate videos, including Osiris’ “The Storm,” “411 Video Magazine,” and “The End” by Birdhouse (Tony Hawk’s skateboard brand) over and over together. They noticed how editing, filming, and framing decisions could make or break a video’s impact. “I wasn’t even thinking about it—I was more into the actual skateboarding—but I was developing other visual skills.” He and his friends collaboratively edited their skate videos and filmed more dramatic reenactments of classic movies like “The Godfather” and “Dracula.” “It was pretty made up . . . vampire teeth and a lot of blood, chasing each other around and filming and fighting.”
Developing the Fundamentals
At Waubonsee Community College (WCC), in Sugar Grove, Illinois, professor Doug Jeppesen catalyzed Haas’s ceramic path. “He opened up my eyes to the possibilities of clay, gave me [the] fundamentals of wheel throwing, and encouraged me to play with the clay more.” There, Perry participated in his first wood-firing experience. The group dynamic essential to wood firing reflected the cooperation he had learned in hockey and in film making, in addition to the necessary commitment of time, material preparation, and the potential for failure and heartbreak that comes with any process.
Dan Murphy was the WCC visiting artist at the time and suggested that Haas continue his ceramic/wood-fire studies at Utah State University (USU). The location alone had his inner snowboarder stoked. Over the next couple of years, Perry completed a BFA at USU. His professors, including Murphy, and peers shaped his work and trajectory. Haas remembers the late John Neely’s meticulous questions surrounding form and function—the highest possible praise was a positive teapot critique.
Dan Murphy described making it as a potter as a numbers game: “If you want to make something well, you’ve got to make hundreds of them.” This idea was familiar to Haas—practice, practice, practice. “I remember him more for his firing style. He would just shove that train kiln’s firebox full of wood to stall it. He’d say, ‘You don’t think there’s any more room, but there’s more room to put wood in there. You gotta get it in there.’”
Creating a Body of Work
After university, Perry completed residencies at The Clay Studio of Missoula, The Bray, Red Lodge Clay Center, and Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center. At Guldagergaard in Skælskør, Denmark, he saw an artist firing a dark clay body with even darker black spots. Intrigued, Perry bought a bunch of that clay, dried it out, and sieved out the chunks making the darker spots—roof shingle shards. He began adding the coarsely ground material into porcelain clay bodies he’d been developing since his time at USU. The shingle chunks seed tiny moments of abstract black spots, melting differently than the porcelain surface surrounding them. Perry uses this surface as a canvas, exploring material properties in combination with wood-fired kiln particularities, blends of different mineral-laden woods, and firing adjustments. In any given wood firing, Perry might have four or five different porcelain clay bodies in use throughout the kiln—suited to different objects (bowls, cups, medium vessels, and large vessels), and/ or to different spots in the kiln.
The colors and patterns he achieves are somewhat unusual within contemporary American ceramics—bright dalmatian-spotted surfaces with flashes of blue, pink, and yellow. Perry met his wife, Iva, at The Bray. Iva remembers seeing Perry’s work for the first time in the gallery, noting the pink pedestal he’d placed his wood-fired work upon. She’d never seen such a contrast.
Haas’s lexicon of form and surface stopped my scroll when I first came across his work on the internet years ago. Movement is present in his finished static objects, both in their undulation drawing the eye in and out of their form, and in the directional swipes of flame-drawn color across their surfaces. He describes his closed ‘Droplet’ forms as canvases to catch ash and glaze.
Balancing a Career and Family Life
After completing his residency at The Bray, Haas worked as a studio potter for about five years, embracing the difficulties of being a wood-firing studio potter—firing without the built-in community of schools and residency programs, along with the high loss rates. Just before their son Marko was born, Haas shifted to working full time at The Bray as studio manager. “It’s been a struggle as someone who was a studio artist full time—that’s all I did—transitioning to not being able to give my work the attention I want to at times, you know?” But family is a priority for him, and “being a father has always been a dream.”
“The slowing down in the studio . . . I think it’s actually helped my practice. I see things differently, I’m taking my time, I’m not in a rush. It changes the way I think of clay and the way I make it. It’s just a different phase in my journey.”
Perry Haas’ work and his spotted surfaces have become synonymous with him in contemporary American ceramics. Googling one day, I came across an eBay listing titled “Perry Haas Style Vase Studio Pottery Tiki Exotica Abstract Speckled Teal Nautica.” Out of curiosity, I asked Perry how he thinks about becoming so closely associated with a particular aspect of his work. “I have a hard time taking credit for that. There’s a lot that led to it, and a lot of people who made that kind of stuff before I did. I ran with it and pushed it further. With social media, I definitely identified myself with that surface. When I stumbled into that, it wasn’t something I had really seen before, taken to this level, or in this way. I mean, it’s pretty cool, I guess.”
Innovation and Knowledge
Haas saw something unusual that drew him in—spotted clay. It already existed, but he began to ask questions that weren’t being asked. Especially in ceramics, no one really does anything alone, or from scratch. Even though he is resistant to claiming any certain ceramic surface as his own, when you do anything with enough sustained focus, it becomes part of you, and you become part of its history and trajectory. Ceramic knowledge is passed like relay batons through time. If you’ve trained and built skills, you’ll find a track to run on, catching up to grab a baton, running further, and eventually passing it off.
From his creative, collaborative beginnings in team sports and amateur filmmaking, all the way to his ceramic accomplishments, Perry Haas has been remixing existing methodologies and feats, adding his own ideas and flair. Even though he wood fires nearly all his ceramic work, Haas says, “I love wood firing, and it’s been a big part of my life and the community I grew up in as an artist, but I don’t really think of myself as a wood‑fire potter. It’s just one of the processes I fell in love with—a way of learning patience and collaboration. For me, it’s not the identity of the work. The firing is one moment, and I’m more interested in what happens across the whole piece—the form, the surface, how the material behaves. That’s what keeps me fired up, not just the label of being a wood‑fire guy.” Kilns are tools, and he’s always looking to use tools and materials in innovative and unusual ways.
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The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
As the last of winter’s sparse snow melts away and spring arrives, the men’s hockey league Perry Haas plays for is closing up its season. As a left wing forward in his 40s skating among 20-year-olds, Haas acts fast to set up his teammates. The fast-paced rhythmic nature of hockey, along with the precision, teamwork, and repetitive practice it requires, is core to many facets of his life, from wood firing to pottery making to family life.
Perry Haas is the facilities director at the Archie Bray Foundation (The Bray) in Helena, Montana, as well as an artist and a father. Playing his part on these various teams, Haas can be found at the Bray doing all manner of things from grading roads on a tractor to kiln maintenance, or at his home, gardening or helping his son Marko feed Spike, their new pet bearded dragon (which Perry and his wife, Iva Haas, describe as “growing way too quickly”).
Inspiration Through Life
Growing up in Geneva, Illinois, drawing was an entry point for him; he’d photograph graffiti to redraw, practicing the fluidity its forms required. Fluid movement served him in team sports, too. As a kid, Haas was recruited from a roller hockey tournament for an ice hockey team; his roller hockey skills gave him an edge among the other kids on the ice. Eventually, other kids caught up, and his advantage faded. But, he figured out how to stand out—his coaches described him as “smartest on the ice”—he knew where to be and how to set up his teammates.
Perry and his friends watched skate videos, including Osiris’ “The Storm,” “411 Video Magazine,” and “The End” by Birdhouse (Tony Hawk’s skateboard brand) over and over together. They noticed how editing, filming, and framing decisions could make or break a video’s impact. “I wasn’t even thinking about it—I was more into the actual skateboarding—but I was developing other visual skills.” He and his friends collaboratively edited their skate videos and filmed more dramatic reenactments of classic movies like “The Godfather” and “Dracula.” “It was pretty made up . . . vampire teeth and a lot of blood, chasing each other around and filming and fighting.”
Developing the Fundamentals
At Waubonsee Community College (WCC), in Sugar Grove, Illinois, professor Doug Jeppesen catalyzed Haas’s ceramic path. “He opened up my eyes to the possibilities of clay, gave me [the] fundamentals of wheel throwing, and encouraged me to play with the clay more.” There, Perry participated in his first wood-firing experience. The group dynamic essential to wood firing reflected the cooperation he had learned in hockey and in film making, in addition to the necessary commitment of time, material preparation, and the potential for failure and heartbreak that comes with any process.
Dan Murphy was the WCC visiting artist at the time and suggested that Haas continue his ceramic/wood-fire studies at Utah State University (USU). The location alone had his inner snowboarder stoked. Over the next couple of years, Perry completed a BFA at USU. His professors, including Murphy, and peers shaped his work and trajectory. Haas remembers the late John Neely’s meticulous questions surrounding form and function—the highest possible praise was a positive teapot critique.
Dan Murphy described making it as a potter as a numbers game: “If you want to make something well, you’ve got to make hundreds of them.” This idea was familiar to Haas—practice, practice, practice. “I remember him more for his firing style. He would just shove that train kiln’s firebox full of wood to stall it. He’d say, ‘You don’t think there’s any more room, but there’s more room to put wood in there. You gotta get it in there.’”
Creating a Body of Work
After university, Perry completed residencies at The Clay Studio of Missoula, The Bray, Red Lodge Clay Center, and Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center. At Guldagergaard in Skælskør, Denmark, he saw an artist firing a dark clay body with even darker black spots. Intrigued, Perry bought a bunch of that clay, dried it out, and sieved out the chunks making the darker spots—roof shingle shards. He began adding the coarsely ground material into porcelain clay bodies he’d been developing since his time at USU. The shingle chunks seed tiny moments of abstract black spots, melting differently than the porcelain surface surrounding them. Perry uses this surface as a canvas, exploring material properties in combination with wood-fired kiln particularities, blends of different mineral-laden woods, and firing adjustments. In any given wood firing, Perry might have four or five different porcelain clay bodies in use throughout the kiln—suited to different objects (bowls, cups, medium vessels, and large vessels), and/ or to different spots in the kiln.
The colors and patterns he achieves are somewhat unusual within contemporary American ceramics—bright dalmatian-spotted surfaces with flashes of blue, pink, and yellow. Perry met his wife, Iva, at The Bray. Iva remembers seeing Perry’s work for the first time in the gallery, noting the pink pedestal he’d placed his wood-fired work upon. She’d never seen such a contrast.
Haas’s lexicon of form and surface stopped my scroll when I first came across his work on the internet years ago. Movement is present in his finished static objects, both in their undulation drawing the eye in and out of their form, and in the directional swipes of flame-drawn color across their surfaces. He describes his closed ‘Droplet’ forms as canvases to catch ash and glaze.
Balancing a Career and Family Life
After completing his residency at The Bray, Haas worked as a studio potter for about five years, embracing the difficulties of being a wood-firing studio potter—firing without the built-in community of schools and residency programs, along with the high loss rates. Just before their son Marko was born, Haas shifted to working full time at The Bray as studio manager. “It’s been a struggle as someone who was a studio artist full time—that’s all I did—transitioning to not being able to give my work the attention I want to at times, you know?” But family is a priority for him, and “being a father has always been a dream.”
“The slowing down in the studio . . . I think it’s actually helped my practice. I see things differently, I’m taking my time, I’m not in a rush. It changes the way I think of clay and the way I make it. It’s just a different phase in my journey.”
Perry Haas’ work and his spotted surfaces have become synonymous with him in contemporary American ceramics. Googling one day, I came across an eBay listing titled “Perry Haas Style Vase Studio Pottery Tiki Exotica Abstract Speckled Teal Nautica.” Out of curiosity, I asked Perry how he thinks about becoming so closely associated with a particular aspect of his work. “I have a hard time taking credit for that. There’s a lot that led to it, and a lot of people who made that kind of stuff before I did. I ran with it and pushed it further. With social media, I definitely identified myself with that surface. When I stumbled into that, it wasn’t something I had really seen before, taken to this level, or in this way. I mean, it’s pretty cool, I guess.”
Innovation and Knowledge
Haas saw something unusual that drew him in—spotted clay. It already existed, but he began to ask questions that weren’t being asked. Especially in ceramics, no one really does anything alone, or from scratch. Even though he is resistant to claiming any certain ceramic surface as his own, when you do anything with enough sustained focus, it becomes part of you, and you become part of its history and trajectory. Ceramic knowledge is passed like relay batons through time. If you’ve trained and built skills, you’ll find a track to run on, catching up to grab a baton, running further, and eventually passing it off.
From his creative, collaborative beginnings in team sports and amateur filmmaking, all the way to his ceramic accomplishments, Perry Haas has been remixing existing methodologies and feats, adding his own ideas and flair. Even though he wood fires nearly all his ceramic work, Haas says, “I love wood firing, and it’s been a big part of my life and the community I grew up in as an artist, but I don’t really think of myself as a wood‑fire potter. It’s just one of the processes I fell in love with—a way of learning patience and collaboration. For me, it’s not the identity of the work. The firing is one moment, and I’m more interested in what happens across the whole piece—the form, the surface, how the material behaves. That’s what keeps me fired up, not just the label of being a wood‑fire guy.” Kilns are tools, and he’s always looking to use tools and materials in innovative and unusual ways.
To learn more about Perry Haas and his work, visit perryhaasceramics.com or follow on Instagram @perryhaasceramics.
the author Andrew Castañeda is a ceramic artist and photographer currently based in Red Lodge, Montana. To learn more, visit andrewcastaneda.com.
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