Dennis Swartzlander, now a full-time potter, spent 40 years in the family printing business, where precision and meeting customer standards were everything. In the studio, Dennis takes a more relaxed and exploratory approach, investigating new shapes, colors, finishes and glaze effects without the pressure of external expectations.

His current focus is crystalline glazes, a technically demanding but visually unpredictable medium that suits his interest in experimentation. The simple forms he favors give the glazes room to move and interact, producing results that are never quite the same twice. Most of Dennis’s pieces are thrown, altered and glaze-fired to over 2300 degrees in varied atmospheres. After a decade teaching ceramics at a private university in southeast Michigan, he retired and now works from his home studio.