The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Long before there were machines, there was – and still is – the human hand. And as miraculous and wonderful machinery is, it does not begin to compare with the creativity of the hand, impelled by the human heart and brain.

For Portland potter Dave Raynalds, ceramic plates, platters, and even globes, benefit from the direct interaction of clay and hand. Raynalds specializes in a technique call slab-built ceramics, which involves hand shaping clay – as opposed to using the pottery wheel – into its finished form.

"I prefer the spontaneous, loose, lively and organic shape that slab building can gi...