About Ambrose Pottery

Ambrose Pottery is located in beautiful Western Pennsylvania in the heart of Amish country. Visitors have the opportunity to see authentic handcrafts from a growing artist community, as well as quilts, weaving, wood-work, Amish-made cabinetry and furniture. There are many interesting sites included with a visit to a working pottery shop, one of 6 in the area.

The Ambrose Pottery was started in the barn behind the Old Ambrose Store, a refurbished general store built in 1870. Featuring functional dinner or kitchen ware as well as large decorative architectural pieces, Bob Bonnet (a link here to my bio-artists statement) exhibits his work and demonstrates his craft to visitors. The pottery is hand crafted and wheel thrown art pottery with some folk pottery thrown in for fun in the form of historic face jugs.

Bob’s great grandfather was Charles Fergus Binns. Binns was born in England in 1857 where his father was a co-managing director of the Royal Worcester Porcelain Works. At age 14, Binns was apprenticed at the "works" and is known to have decorated several dessert plates two years later. While his primary positions at the Royal Worcester factory were administrative, he became a recognized scholar and lecturer concerning world ceramics. He accompanied the Royal Worcester exhibit to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, and made the United States his home a few years later. This exhibition chronicles his life as a ceramic artist and scientist in the United States beginning with pieces he designed for Lenox China in about 1899.
Binns is commonly referred to as the "Father of American studio ceramics." This title reflects not only his creation of unique, virtuous stoneware pots in the Arts & Crafts style, but additionally acknowledges his accomplishment of bringing vital information about ceramic clay bodies and glaze recipes to the lay person, thereby laying the foundation of the flourishing studio ceramics movement in the United States that began in the early 1900's.

In 1900, New York Governor Teddy Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics (now the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University). Binns was appointed as the founding Director at that time and held the position for more than thirty years until his retirement in 1931. Referred to on campus as "Daddy" Binns, he is best known for his classic pots with rich monochrome glazes, but one example of his prolific writing, a book titled The Potter's Craft, has been reprinted three times since the first edition in 1910. (Lifted from the Alfred University website regarding the 1998 exhibit of Binn’s work).

Two generations later, Bob continues the family legacy.

The Ambrose pottery provides the visitor with several treats and surprises. The showroom is located in the barn next to the studio and shares space with the working equipment of pottery-making (kilns). You will find the self-serve display area -- the original “Pottery Barn”. The pottery is available for the “taking,” -- at the price indicated on the label. The box next to the phone is available to deposit your money and make change for the pot of your choice, and bags and newspapers are provided for wrapping your purchase. Then all you need to do is take your piece home and find a nice place to put it.

You are welcome to watch through the studio window while Bob is working at the wheel, but It is not unknown for Bob to come out and chat with visitors or invite them into the studio but to continue his work and avoid distractions, the retail side is available on a 24 hour, help yourself basis.