Dan Greenfeld

Dan Greenfeld grew up in Brooklyn and was an attorney for 35 years. Now he's a New York City potter-ceramic artist (a hyphenate he obsesses over) specializing in teapots - porcelain, wood-fired, wisteria handled - that are as functional as they are beautiful. His interest in ceramics was kindled seven years ago when he met his spouse, a ceramicist, artist, and creativity educator. Having no real knowledge of ceramics, but fascinated by the pieces she was making in her studio and from which they were eating and drinking, Dan began looking at ceramics in museums and galleries, and reading and asking questions about, and ultimately collecting, ceramics. Feeling he could never really understand ceramics without some experience in making them, Dan started taking classes and had the good fortune to receive instruction from some potters during his first trip to Japan. He progressed by taking workshops with potters whose work he admired, and refined his techniques, forms, and materials by using the wisdom and experience they so graciously and selflessly imparted. Dan chose to explore the teapot because he was challenged by the form's inherently conflicting aesthetic and functional issues. As his thinking evolved, he began to understand that a teapot of sufficient beauty and functionality could enhance people's lives. The teapot can be the focal point of a daily ritual (used in the best sense of the word) encompassing aesthetic contemplation, tea connoisseurship, considered and focused utilization of the senses, and most importantly, discourse and human connection - the essence of the tea ceremony.

Posts

Paris museum exhibition on the history of tea	20 Nov 2012
Making tea bowls (chawan)	16 Mar 2010
First firing	09 Oct 2009
“Out of the Anagama: Kilnmaster and Stoker” exhibit in Boston	24 Sep 2009
Tea adventures in Tokyo	26 May 2009
Tea cups – they’re more complex than you might think	18 Feb 2009
The Wood-Fired Teapot	05 Oct 2006
Teapots – Function and Beauty	21 Aug 2006