Potter has a national business and a borough neighborhood address

MILFORD - David Greenbaum turns wet clay into works of art at his studio on Seventh Street. The studio is filled with beautiful hand crafted pots, urns and bowls in the unique style Greenbaum has developed. Greenbaum has been making hand-crafted pottery for over 30 years, since his senior year in college. With a degree in Therapeutic Recreation and a love of pottery making, he turned his hobby into his life’s work. Starting as an apprentice for a Rhode Island pottery maker, he eventually opened a small pottery shop in Point Pleasant, N.J. He recalls those days, working 14 to 18 hours a day — and loving it. He has been married for almost 30 years to his wife, Joann, and raised two grown sons over the span of his crafting years. “In the beginning I used to make giant urns that weighed as much as 400 pounds,” said Greenbaum. “I had to invent specialized tools and equipment to get them from my spinning wheel into the kiln.” When visited by the Courier, Greenbaum was busy turning a five-pound ball of clay into a beautifully shaped work of art. “It is amazing that I have made a decent living from day one,” he remarked. “Over the past 25 years I have developed my own unique style of pottery. The style is called ‘burnished pots,’ which are made on the potter’s wheel and have no glaze on them. The shiny surface is created by rubbing the dried clay pots with a polishing stone which compresses the clay particles and creates the gloss,” Greenbaum said, describing the method he uses to achieve a shiny finished product. “I sell about 80% of my work at high end art shows. I travel to about eight or ten shows a year as far away as Denver and St. Louis. Our place in Milford is our showroom and workshop. Not much gets sold over the Internet because people like to see and feel the items before they purchase them. “Actually Whoopi Goldberg is a collector of my works. My finished pots are displayed in several museums around the country such as the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas, the Harn Museum in Florida, the Kohler Museum in Wisconsin, and the Danforth Museum in Massachussets,” Greenbaum continued. The Greenbaums lived in Florida for 24 years and have now settled in Milford, which Greenbaum describes as “a lovely town filled with antique shops and art studios.” Although some town officials have given them a hard time because their studio and home is zoned residential while the other buildings around them are all zoned commercial. The Greenbaums have a conditional use zoning permit to operate their business, and are confident that they will eventually get their showroom and home re-zoned commercial. Greenbaum Studios is located at 114 7th Street across from the Old Lumberyard. David or Joann can be reached by calling 296-7373 or visit them online at www.greenbaumstudios.com .