Get to Know
BOB DINETZ: POTTER, GRAPHIC DESIGNER, FAN OF CLEAN LINES
Story by Diana Keeler / Photography by David Chow and Bob Dinetz
After discovering pottery while traveling in Japan, graphic designer, Bob Dinetz took to the pottery wheel and never looked back. Today, some 6 years later, Bob is an accomplished potter known for crafting simple, functional, effortless looking ceramics in natural, nuanced glazes. Bob recently hand-threw a collection of pieces for Bloomist.
Trained as a graphic designer, Bob Dinetz has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world: Apple, The New York Times, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Reviewing his portfolio, it’s easy to see some similarities with his six-year-old pottery practice, a sense of visual economy perhaps chief among them. “The link between design and pottery for me is simplicity and functionality — hopefully without being boring,” says Dinetz, who is based in the Bay Area. “My goal in both disciplines is to use only as much design as necessary in hopes of achieving an effortlessness look.”
The differences, though, may be what matter most: “With the graphic design work, it’s necessary to combine a brand’s voice, or a client’s requirements, with what feel's right for the assignment,” he says. “With the pottery, I have an opportunity to be the author of the content — I’m not responding to an assignment. I get to create an object and then see if there’s any kind of audience for it.”
"THE LINK BETWEEN DESIGN AND POTTERY FOR ME IS SIMPLICITY AND FUNCTIONALITY—HOPEFULLY WITHOUT BEING BORING."
He’s found that audience in rather short order. Inspired by the pottery he encountered while traveling through Japan and at local flea markets, he took an introductory Saturday class at The Potter’s Studio in Berkeley. (“I made a lot of bad pottery,” he says.) Now, he hand-throws his pieces at home while still using the Berkeley facility for glazing; they share clean lines and gorgeous glazes.
Pictured: Bob creates test glaze “swatches” before glazing finished pieces.
He’s slowly expanding his repertoire of shapes. “I see this as a long trajectory, so I'm not in a hurry to jump from one thing to another,” he says. “I still get quite a bit of pleasure out of a simple bowl that feels balanced in your hand and has a surface that fired really well. I guess what I’d like to do is spend more time on glaze formulation and also take a look at making some slab-formed pieces — you know, not made on the wheel.
But we'll see. "Chief among his investigations is a project for Bloomist: “I recently arrived at a vase shape that has a horizontal band, created by pushing the clay out from the cylinder with my finger tip and then shaped with a kidney tool,” he says. “I'm making two variations of this piece, where the band is either high or low on the vase. When they’re arranged in a group, the variation activates the pieces and provides a bit of animation.”
