Symco Pottery Works

Named to honor of the farm that Dom’s grandpa cultivated in Symco, Wisconsin, Symco Pottery Works is where Dom first established his ceramics studio. In 2015, he and his studio moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he lives with Laura, Gebo, and Boda.

How it started

I learned to make pots from a man named Gerry Punt in the spring of 2002. Being introduced to clay as a ceramic material was a transformative experience for me.  My small campus housed a few historic buildings in South Dakota as well as a number of World War 2 barracks complexes originally designed to be temporary accommodation.  The ceramics classes were housed in the partially windowed barracks towards the center of the complex.

I was a senior in college when I first had the opportunity to take a ceramics class.  I was a Biology Major who needed to complete a fine art requirement in order to graduate. On the first day of class we talked about clay, on the second day we wedged.  Returning to class sore on the third day class had me curious about what was going on…and on that day I forgot about the ache in my back and arms as I became mesmerized by an incredibly gracious bearded man named Gerry.

Gerry turned a wheel by foot and in mere moments transformed a slippery looking grey blob of clay into a transient record of poetic motion resulting in a bowl.  He repeated the process a second time, even faster, making sure to highlight important transitions aloud. He looked around the room for understanding as a second piece magically appeared from a second grey lump, a twin of the first. I knew was witnessing mastery.

I had seen mastery before…in the way Mr. Frank Moorer of Alabama State University conducted a lecture…each moment of speech, thoughtful, each response to a question considered. I saw it was in the hands and spirit of a sushi chef named Masafumi “Fumi” Naoe. And I knew my grandpa had it too, on a small farm in central Wisconsin.