Couple's life and work are shaped in clay

'Anything that's round, I make," said John Garland. "Anything that's not round, she makes," he said of his wife and pottery partner, Mary Paul, whose angular work includes stunning teapots. "She's does more of the hand-building; I do more of the wheel throwing."

Like all couples, they have divisions of labor, but theirs include home life, work life and even artistic expression at their Freechild Studio in Knightdale. In the decade since Garland and Paul met and started working together, their brilliantly decorated red earthenware pieces have become so cohesive that visitors to their shows are amazed that two people have a hand in the work.

Lathe to wheel: "I've been making pots probably for 25 years," said Garland, 52, who started Freechild in Raleigh in the 1980s. "I had done some woodworking and things like that. I saw someone making a pot, and thought, 'That makes a whole lot more sense.' Clay is so much more malleable. I sold all my woodworking tools and bought a wheel and a kiln. I had to learn quickly."

He worked as a potter full time until an accident scared him into getting a job with health insurance. By day, Garland works for the City of Raleigh overseeing water treatment plants. "It's largely left brain, which leaves room for the pottery, which is right brain."

Drawn to pottery: Paul, who has a degree in art therapy, was originally more interested in drawing and painting. "But after college I got reintroduced to ceramics and started taking some pottery classes and workshops and really loved it," she said. After moving to Raleigh in 1997 from Milwaukee, she taught art at Raleigh Charter High School for several years before doing pottery full time.

The arrow struck: A workshop on ceramics materials and glazes the potters both attended at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tenn., changed their lives.

While the course itself was rather unsatisfying, Garland recalled, the information imparted on glazes changed his life, as did meeting Paul. By the end of the year, she had left Milwaukee to join him in Raleigh.

The couple moved to Knightdale and opened a studio in 2003. They share their home with two dogs and two cats, and their yard with two pygmy goats.

Piece work: What they learned at Arrowmont "spurred the style we work in now," Garland said.

While the two make some porcelain stoneware pieces, they have become known for their elaborately decorated earthenware work, which uses the underglaze technique they learned in Tennessee.

The pottery is wheel thrown or hand built. After one "bisque firing," which makes a piece strong enough to receive glaze, the pieces move to their living room for hours and sometimes days of embellishment.

"It's a nice way to spend time together in the evenings, and it's something you can do in your lap, like crocheting," Paul said.

Different approaches: The intense hues that cover their bowls, vases and platters are the results of the underglazes, which they painstakingly apply using a "needlepoint bottle" that allows them to draw with the glaze.

"First we outline the design in black, then we go back and fill it in with color," Garland said. "Once it's fired again, the colors get richer and truer." Garland makes all his designs free-form.

"I sit down with a blank piece of clay and I usually stare at it for five minutes," he said. "I have no earthly idea what I'm going to do."

Paul, on the other hand, plans ahead. "I usually have an idea," she said. "If it's something intricate, I may sketch it out in pencil first, but more often I draw freehand."