Michael Schwartz
Michael Schwartz was born in Brooklyn and went to school in New York City from kindergarten through medical school. After an active psychiatric practice in Denver, Colorado for 27 years he retired to Florence in 1995, and took his first pottery lesson. “I didn’t know that I’d fall in love”, he says about pottery, “but now half my double garage has become my pottery studio”.
Mike’s specialty is pit fired ceramics in which no glaze is used to color his work. Pit firing is an ancient process which predated the advent of the kiln. His colors come from interaction of fire and smoke working on the salts and metals with which he’s treated his pieces. As a retired psychiatrist, now turned potter, Mike’s motto has become, “May all your crackpots be made of clay only”!