Cathra-Anne Barker is a self-taught potter with 50 years of experience.
Initially a painter and a drawer, she was not satisfied with the flatness. Eventually she threw her first pot (story & photo below) and the wheel just kept on turning.
Her work is practical and personal. There is no production work and she does everything from building kilns to mixing glazes. She is inspired by plants (the major miracle of earth), travel, hunks of fabric, song, and on and on. In the winter she forgets that something is coming and every spring a pattern emerges that surprises her.
When she is in her studio, especially when glazing, she often wonders who she is making that piece for and loves that she gets to find out.
Cathra-Anne has a great affection for the people who want to live with her pots and she hopes that when they see them they feel that along with a smile.
She and her former apprentice, now Husband, Richard Meyer share a studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico.