Sue Salvaterra Hintz
Ceramic artist
Artisan pottery is functional and has infinite possibilities in design and form. Imagine a handcrafted ceramic piece as your favorite coffee mug, a cereal bowl or a plate full of your favorite foods. These vessels embody a deeper story about craftsmanship and creativity and will always bring to mind the artist, the trip or the person who gave it to you.
Sue Salvaterra Hintz is a maker of functional and beautiful pottery for daily use, offering selections for your own home or as a gift for someone special. Sue has developed her style for over 20 years as a potter and has taken the time to create items that are uniquely hers. She is open to customization, and along with husband Randy, has the ability to offer furnishings of combined ceramics and wood.
Sue’s ceramic background began when she worked at UNC-Asheville and had a chance to take a beginning course in pottery. She loved the class and signed up over and over. The additional classes improved her skills and planted the seed of becoming self-employed as an artist. In 1996 she took that leap of faith.
Sue began with a clay studio in her home basement and slowly built her business. Before long she had enough products to sell to galleries as a wholesaler. Over the next 20 years her business grew. She continued to seek counsel to scale her business with both efficiency and wisdom and offered well-designed salable products. By 2017 she needed a new space to maintain this growth and to supply her 50+ accounts. Sue and Randy built a commercial building and carefully planned for every aspect of the making to selling process.
Now she has a small team, along with two studio pups, and they are able to fill orders quickly. Sue is willing to take on special requests and teams up with Randy to design custom home decor items. Randy’s goal is to retire from his engineering career very soon and join Sue full time in the studio.
Let’s go on a tour to visit Sue and see her wide selection of pottery. We’ll explore the studio and hear directly from her about this labor of love and how it is possible to shift careers and do so successfully.
