Ceramic Bowl by Susan Balto & Bob Jappe

12 1/2" W x 2 1/2" H

Fellow Schmidt Artist Lofts residents Bob Jappe and Susan Balto work in a collaboration shaped by time, respect, and a shared devotion to craft. Their partnership merges Bob's decades of wheel-thrown mastery-forms that approach a kind of quiet perfection-with Susan's contemporary, intentionally imperfect surface designs. The result is a compelling juxtaposition: vessels grounded in traditional technique, made newly alive through painterly botanicals, hand-drawn immediacy, and patterns that let these vitrified forms feel unexpectedly alive.

Bob, a Minnesota native and longtime art educator, refined his ceramic practice across more than forty years in Colorado before returning to the Midwest. His forms carry the depth and steadiness of a lifetime at the wheel. Susan, a St. Paul-based artist and therapist, brings a modern visual language-ranging from bold geometric checkers to delicate botanical illustrations that seem to migrate onto clay like sketches mid-breath.

In the studio, the quiet focus passed between them speaks to a craft carried across generations. Their collaboration honors not only the precision of Bob's forms and the expressive nuance of Susan's designs, but also the intergenerational partnership itself: a mutual recognition of skill, a respect for the other's hand, and a shared belief that functional objects can be both timeless and deeply personal.