An example of slipcasting is shown at Haand’s Burlington, N.C. facility.

The art of ceramic pottery pulled a pair of friends from Jacksonville, Fla., to North Carolina’s Piedmont region to create a business.

Mark Warren and Chris Pence founded Haand nearly a decade ago, creating ceramic pottery in Burlington, N.C. Already with a strong foothold in the hospitality business, the Haand creators are now starting to turn their attention toward retail and interior design customers.

“We’re trying to understand the consumer facing market and expand on that and to capitalize on the hard work we’ve put into the hospitality market,” Warren told Home Accents Today during a tour of Haand’s facility, which took place prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s more low margin/high volume, so we want to take what we learned from that and bring it into the consumer market and be as creative as we can be with new product.”

After graduating high school in Jacksonville, Warren learned the slipcasting technique while attending the Penland School of Craft in Bakersville, N.C.

“It’s a process where you use a plaster mold and a liquid clay called slip. It’s poured into the mold and that’s how you create the piece,” Warren said. “It’s an 18th century development in ceramics — that’s how industrial ceramics were made for a while. I make the original piece that the mold is based off of and then make the mold. We’ll make multiple molds out of all of them.”

The slip sits in the mold for about 20 minutes, where excess water is drawn out of the clay. From there, the caster takes it out of the mold and cleans it with a sponge, which gives each piece one-of-a-kind features. Once it dries and reaches ambient humidity, the piece is kiln fired to 1,800 degrees and is glazed once its cools. Then, it’s kiln-fired again at hotter temperatures (2,300 degrees) which gives it a glassy finish.

Warren briefly brought those skills back to Florida, where the seeds for the business were planted.

This display wall inside Haand’s showroom showcases many of the products the company creates.

“He came back from that making pottery as one of the things he had developed there. I was working in Jacksonville, Fla., at the time as an accountant,” Pence recalled. “He had a sale at his house and bought some of his pottery. I started using it and it became some of my favorites to use. We were at crossroads in our lives and sat down and said what if we make a go at this and tried to try to make a pottery company?”

They chose North Carolina because of practical logistics of being more centrally located in the eastern U.S., plus there’s a history to draw upon and a strong interest in the craft regionally.

And to start, they did it all, from crafting pottery to bookkeeping and other clerical tasks. As the company has grown over the years, they’ve added front office staff and artisans.

“The No. 1 thing I have learned is the perseverance required to start your own company is tremendous and takes a lot more than you would expect,” Pence said. “To be able to have the perseverance, you have to have surrounded yourself with quality people who care about you. We started the company with no major funding. It was the two of us for two years.”

And as artisan products have gained a foothold in the marketplace, Warren and Pence feel they’re poised to flourish because of the quality of goods they produce.

“The legacy of human touch is a big thing,” Pence said. “In the age of commoditization and how everything around us has become something of a commodity, individuality stands out.”