Jim Rowe will throw pots at his new studio, Cambridge Stoneware Co., expected to open later this month at the former location of Rowe Pottery Works Company Store, which moved across the street last January.

Potter to open studio-store in old Cambridge location

Lynn Welch — 6/15/2007 11:57 am

CAMBRIDGE -- In retrospect, it wasn't the worst thing that happened.

"Things happen the way they happen for a reason," potter and businessman Jim Rowe explained at his new studio.

It's this view Rowe carries three years after losing the nationally known historic salt-glazed pottery firm he founded.

Circumstances that separated Rowe from his namesake company could be seen as somewhat serendipitous. This year, Rowe returned to Main Street, producing pottery in a familiar spot.

Rowe plans to open his new studio and shop, Cambridge Stoneware Co., late this month showcasing his own work and that of Dave Landre and Eric Ellefsen.

The studio-store is at the original Cambridge location of Rowe Pottery Works, 217 W. Main St., and is situated right across from Rowe Pottery Works' new location, 214 W. Main St.

"I enjoy designing and coming up with glazes that work together," Rowe explained of his re-establishing his pottery studio. "I've also been blessed with the fact that I can run the business angle of it also."

Cambridge Stoneware will create a line of pottery on site in a kiln designed by Rowe to replicate the effect of salt glaze without actually salting.

An environmental irritant, according to Rowe, firing salt-glazed pottery involves emitting chlorine gas and salt flake particulates which are a nuisance at best, an environmental pollutant at worse.

For 20 years, Rowe and the engineers he employed tried to find a way to reduce these environmental effects.

Rowe even had a name for the ongoing project: "Fauxnacl," or fake salt. (NaCl is the chemical symbol for common salt.)

"Nobody could seem to do it," recalled Rowe. "I was extremely pleased when I was able to put it all together."

For the past two years, Rowe has been testing and retesting this "fauxnacl" in a small kiln he designed at his home. The goal is to produce the bronzed, bumpy orange peel look of historic salt-glazed pottery without the salt glaze.

Workers recently finished installing a larger gas kiln Rowe engineered in the back room at Cambridge Stoneware.

Run by computer controls, the kiln contains light-weight insulated bricks and furnace lining inside a blue steel shell.

Rowe expected to begin firing the kiln next week, tweaking the technology to produce a small stock of historic pieces.

"This is a natural steppingstone to what I was doing," Rowe said. "I think the fact that we're focusing on sustainable processes and natural looks, bringing nature into our work with a natural look and using nature as a design inspiration, it will be a plus."

The idea is to keep the studio small and stock moving through the adjacent store quickly. Customers can watch Rowe and other potters throwing pots in a glassed-in studio.

In time, Rowe expects to create a more contemporary line of pottery to appeal to a younger consumer. Tastes have changed since the heyday of Rowe Pottery, which was fueled by tastes in country-style home decor.

Last fall, Rowe began selling his stoneware online under the name Stoneware Studios. Until the new kiln begins producing, only seconds remain.

He began renovating the building he owns in January after Rowe Pottery, owned by Ed Starostovic and Justin Janisch, vacated the building.

In May 2004, a cash-strapped Rowe Pottery faced closure when Madison business owners Starostovic and Janisch won the bid to purchase it for $700,000.

Before the sale, Rowe brought on Tom Henkels as an investor in his business to market his collectible wares. Sales fell as inexpensive imports flooded the market in the late 1990s and early 2000s and years of Main Street road construction in Cambridge hampered tourism.

Henkels decided the company's prospects were not good, and decided to close it. The business went into receivership, and Starostovic and Janisch won the bid for the business over Rowe.

Starostovic said he and Janisch, his grandson, moved Rowe Pottery after their lease ran out in early January. He said Rowe was charging rent that was more than double market rate in Cambridge.

"Part of us gaining control of the company was with the leases. The lease for the store was with Jim personally," Starostovic explained. "The rent fee over there was outrageous."

As part of the move, Janisch bought the Daily Grind coffee shop, which had been across from its former home, and moved it into the side bay of the new Rowe company store. It made sense, Starostovic said, to have someplace to sit and have refreshments while shopping.

"I feel the location we're in now is at least as good now as the old one," Starostovic said, noting that the square footage of the store is about equivalent to the former spot.

Rowe secured a $120,000 Community Block Grant loan from Dane County this spring to open the new business. In addition to the potters, Rowe expects to employ about 12 others.

Rowe's new studio and store across the street can only mean good things for Cambridge and his business Starostovic said.

"We think he'll bring customers to the Cambridge area," Starostovic said. "We do not look upon his existence as a negative at all."

Rowe also believes in Cambridge's revival. The TRU Tavern Grill opened this year at 157 W. Main St., adding to the three-block tourist strip.

"Cambridge is in one of its more optimistic periods," Rowe said.

Lynn Welch — 6/15/2007 11:57 am