The 2011 featured potter was Elmer Taylor. Taylor is the Regents' Professor of Art at the University of North Texas and maintains a summer studio in the Sun Valley region of Idaho.

Taylor received his bachelor's and master's degrees in fine arts from Arizona State University and did a two-year internship in England before returning to the U.S. in 1972. Two years later, he began a 27-year association with the University of North Texas in which he has excelled as an art and ceramics instructor.

Taylor has been published numerous times in Ceramics Monthly and other publications, while his work has been collected by museums such as High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Ga., Lincoln Collection of Contemporary Ceramics in Scottsdale, Ariz., and the American Heritage Collection in Tempe, Ariz.

"I gear my pottery to satisfy the needs of kitchen and table, restricting myself to producing a limited range of forms that are continually refined," Taylor explains. "Some refinements come from observations made in daily use of my pottery in my own home. Others come from repeatedly working with similar forms over a period of years. My main goal is not to make pots, but allow them to grow from the interaction between the qualities inherent in clay as a material and my skill as a craftsman."

When not at the University of North Texas, Taylor can be found at Taylormade Pottery in Kethchum, Idaho - www.taylormadepottery.com