Made on the Gulfshore

The cleanliness of Ruth Hablutzel’s pottery studio—a prefab shed screened with flowering vines in her Golden Gate back yard—has little to do with her upbringing in the order and tidiness of Switzerland, or with her scientific training as a laboratory technologist. Rather, it has more to do with her innate sense of practicality. "I have allergies so I have to keep things really clean," Hablutzel says with a shrug. "My body and mind are not in harmony with each other. I seem to like everything that is not good for me: gardening, pottery, working with dust and dirt and pollen. So, I have to be practical. I’ve always been practical—it’s not a Swiss thing, it’s just me."

Hablutzel’s good-humored passion for the practical is tempered by sleek, modern sensibilities: minimalist forms are softened and deepened by rich, organic glazes and light, graceful lines. "When I was growing up, IKEA was the big store—we all looked to Scandinavia for inspiration: simple lines and natural textures," says Hablutzel of her 1960s influences.

"And, oh, I did the ‘hippie thing,’ big flowery pants and long hair. But I’m over that. I’m too practical for long hair."

The pottery is still groovy, though. Hablutzel’s thrown pitchers ($50 to $75), platters ($60 to $90), cups, stemware, coffee and tea sets ($80), and bowls ($45 to $60), with their natural-toned glazes, all have the light-handed, sensual elegance not weighed down simply by the virtue of being stoneware.

Ayen for the adventure of a gypsy life inspired Hablutzel to leave Zurich for Canada in 1967. "I imagined living in a different country every year," she says. "So, I went to Canada. It was easy to get a [Canadian] visa then. But I met an old sweetheart from Switzerland by accident in Montreal’s Mont Royal Park. So, I got married, and I got stuck in Canada for 13 years."

The Canadian cold eventually drove them south to Woodstock, Ga., where her husband, a graphic designer, had accepted a teaching position. It was there, as her three children got older, that Hablutzel began her career as a potter. She took classes at nearby Abernathy Arts Center School in Atlanta and eventually taught there and worked in her home studio. "I had my studio in the basement, and my husband had his office in our garage," she says. "I had to kick my husband out of the garage. But he saw it would be easier than carrying two tons of clay from the car into the basement."

After 25 years in Georgia, the empty-nest couple headed for Naples. "In Atlanta, there were so many potters and maybe too many bad potters that under-sell the good potters. My husband wanted ‘sea air,’" says Hablutzel. "We wanted to go as far south in Florida as we could go. But the Keys were too expensive—and too full of trailer parks."

There were also practical considerations. "We didn’t really consider moving to the Caribbean for healthcare reasons," she says. "But we still might move back to Switzerland. We still have a little house in the mountains that my parents left me. But the snow … " Hablutzel shivers at the thought, before recovering her matter-of-fact tone. "Well! We don’t have to decide that today, do we?"

Nestled out in her Golden Gate home, Hablutzel continues creating functional art: large, commissioned dinner services for customers around the country, coffee sets and sake sets for her seasonal craft fair market, and other little experimental pieces for her classes at Kilns n’ Clay on Pine Ridge Road and with the Naples Art Association.

"My customers are practical people, like me," she explains. "It is fascinating that a blob of mud can be transformed with earth and fire into something beautiful and useful."

And then, with a most impractical note: "The magic never ceases to amaze me," she says.