If Mike were here today, the way he was before, he'd be furthering his love for cultivating bamboo in his own hand-made pots, often painted with slip-glazes in leaf-shapes of bamboo. He always would talk about how amazingly beautiful the plant was for its rugged nature yet its simple and airlike beauty. Now his love of bamboo lives on in his memory as we planted a garden of it near his in the Idaho Botanical Garden, where the small stream running through once gave Mike great peace. Where it still does, I believe.

Left, book cover of Master potter Shoji Hamada, Michaels' favorite. Center, one of Hamada's pieces. Right, a pensive Hamada.

Michael loved the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada, a master in his craft. Many of Mike's ambitions for his own work were influenced by Hamada and Bernard Leach. Shoji Hamada passed away in 1978, and his work is well-known today throughout the world. Mike would often aspire to Hamada's form as his ultimate goal for his pieces, and in my eyes his work is in and of itself beautifully done. Mike was very hard on himself, but in my eyes his pottery had a beauty and a spontanaeity that I've found hard to accomplish in my own work. I loved watching Michael while he threw on the wheel. Take this link to his pottery page.