Charles Kelly learned to throw pots in high school. He did some study in college and was then a member of the ceramics co-op Mudflat in Cambridge MA until he was 25 and stopped making pots. Cut ahead 40 years and he’s back at it, working out of Claytivity Studio in Frogtown. Now, as then, Kelly looks to the legacy of folk pottery as demonstrated by Shoji Hamada and Bernard Leach and their contemporaries in the mid-20th century where the “mingei” concept of craftsperson was being debated. The concept asserted that true craft is localized and anonymous, denying idividualism. But it was a few genius craftspeople producing works that combined utility and artistic beauty that has influenced the esteem with which handcrafts are now regarded . It is an honor to provide what is useful and beautiful in the day-to-day .