Austin grew up in Ecuador watching a neighbor's mother throw ceramics for the markets in Cuenca. He never touched the wheel then, just watched. He came to it years later at a community studio in American Fork that rented wheel hours cheap, and kept going because centering clay was the first honest thing to tell him no in a while. Clay collapses or it doesn't. It doesn't care about your résumé.
He throws bowls and mugs, admits what he can't do, and tells you what everything costs. He teaches the way he learned: quietly, by watching hands, and by letting you make five bad pots.
