Just a few years ago, terms such as “digital fabrication,” “3-D printing,” and “CAD” began appearing in the news, piquing readers’ interest with visions of Jetsons-style consumer gadgets. Auto enthusiasts began fabricating obscure discontinued car parts with the help of the MakerBot, while Americans concerned about gun control sounded the alarm about the advent of something the writers of the second amendment could never have predicted: 3-D-printed firearms. If computer-aided design (CAD) and 3-D printing haven’t quite transformed the average household into a hotbed of automated convenience, they certainly have altered the studio landscape for artists and designers all over the world.

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American studio ceramics have come a long way since the late nineteenth century when the “Saturday Evening Girls” decorated children’s tableware by hand in their Boston workroom at the Paul Revere Pottery. Just as the vogue for arts and crafts style was on the decline, European modernism gave American design a jolt of creative energy, introducing the clean bold forms of Bauhaus tableware to a population that was beginning to tire of lily-pad and sunset motifs and the like.

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