David McBeth, a professor of art at the University of Tennessee at Martin, combines art and public service to aid his community. Each fall, McBeth leads an effort to create 500 ceramic soup bowls as part of the Empty Bowls Project to help a local organization.

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"I am focused on making carefully crafted thoughtful utilitarian pottery. In forming pots, the potter is informing the user. How the cup, bowl, mug is shaped affects how the user connects and completes the work. There is an intimacy in the use of handmade pots that does not exist in other art forms. It is this connection, this intimacy that drives me in the studio, encourages me to keep the wheel spinning and the kilns hot."

 

Newly retired from the University of Tennessee at Martin's Visual & Theatre Arts department after 30 years, David spends his time working in his studio in Downeast Maine. David makes stoneware and porcelain utilitarian wares. McBeth holds an MA and an MFA in ceramics from Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas. In his spare time David enjoys knitting, spending time with his wife, grown children, and wonderful grandchildren. David's studio in Maine is called Walker Pond Pottery.