The Fiber and Clay Art
of Christine & Michael Adcock

A Unique Fine Crafts Collaboration

Joining Forces: Two Unique Visions and A Beautiful Creative Union

Pottery, Basketry, Fiber Clay Vessels and Hand-made Functional Art

Christine has been a contemporary basket weaver, and Michael a studio potter, each for over forty years. After working in their separate media in the same studio for several years, they began to see the rich potential in combining their materials and their vision into a unique line of beautiful mixed-media vessels for the home.

The Story of Adcock Studios

Michael Adcock, Potter

Michael began his studies in Art and Ceramics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Working under the distinguished potter and teacher, Al Johnsen, and later becoming his apprentice, he graduated, with honors, in 1972 with a combined degree in Ceramics and Art History. After working for several years honing his skills as a studio potter, he discovered the beautiful stone-like surfaces of sagger and smoke-firing and began to collaborate with Christine, a basket weaver on a unique line of clay and fiber vessels.

Christine Love Adcock, Basket Weaver

Christine’s love of indigenous art originated in childhood when she lived for several years with her family in Puerto Rico and Mexico. She began experimenting with elements of nature in her sculpture as a young adult, as an Art major at the University of California. Christine found in basketry, and later in her collaboration with Michael, a way to showcase the elegant designs found in the nature, and place them in a context where people could see and appreciate their inherent beauty.

The Beginning of an Enduring Partnership. Best Together.

Christine and Michael first met in a commune in the mountains above Santa Barbara in the 1970’s. They shared a dream living in nature and creating a home and studio where they could live simply as artists. They married in 1979, and after working for a local ceramics studio for several years, he throwing and she hand-painting pots, they launched their first line of their collaborative work.

Soon after, they were able to realize their dream and bought a home in the mountains above Santa Barbara, where they still live and work today. In 1982 Michael and Christine started a family. It was after their two daughters were born that they decided that they really did their best work together. Inspired, they combined their resources to create a collaborative line of Fiber and Clay.

Hand-made, Usable Stoneware Vessels. Functional Beauty.

The girls grew up and left for college and beyond, and the collaboration at home in Santa Barbara expanded.

Michael revived his original love of functional pottery urged by friends and family who love having simple, hand-made objects in their lives.

Together, Christine and Michael created a series of vessels that integrate low-fired stoneware, natural plant fibers, hand-made papers, and other media into a harmonious union.

Having between them the advantage of over 85 years-experience in the two media, Michael and Christine were able to create an integrated line of vessels, with the unique qualities of each medium enhancing the other. Drawing inspiration from the clay, stones, seed pods, leaves and grasses which surround them, the vessels evolved into a harmonious whole, reflecting the palette and the complex beauty of nature.

After searching for a clay surface that would combine well with textural fibers, they discovered the natural, stone-like surfaces possible with the process of sagger and smoke firing. The earthy, primitive tonalities and textures of the natural fibers and the stone-like surfaces of the sagger and smoke-fired stoneware combine to create a vessel that reveals the various media as being not only mutually compatible, but as actually enhancing each ones unique beauty.

Funereal Urns

In response to requests for custom Funereal Urns, or Cremation Urns, Michael created a beautiful line reflecting the natural world, employing the same aesthetic as their line of Mixed Media vessels.

Exhibitions at Fine Craft Shows, Galleries and Museums

Michael and Christine are grateful for the simple artist’s life they live and for all the people that have supported their work over the years. They have exhibited their work at many of the premier Fine Craft show across the country, such as the Smithsonian and Philadelphia Museum Craft Shows. Their work is published and displayed in galleries, museums, and interior design showrooms throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan, they have been published in many magazines and art books and have been awarded numerous awards for their art.