Let’s Talk About Jobi Pottery: The Jobi™ Story, 1953-2023, Celebrating 70 Years in Truro

Join Susan Kurtzman, owner of Jobi Pottery, for a talk on the fascinating history of this local pottery design studio.

Jobi™ Pottery is an original Truro cottage industry that began in 1953 in a hot dog shack near the Highland Cape Cod
Lighthouse by Joe Colliano and Bill Hastings (Jo-Bi). Today our workshop and studio is still in Truro, where we make pottery year round to sell in our gallery, in select stores, museums and online.

How is it made, who are the artists that contributed to making Jobi stand out, what are the designs, why is it collectible? The mysteries and the allure of JOBI Pottery will be revealed, described and demonstrated by Susan Kurtzman, ceramic designer, who has owned, made, and taught about JOBI Pottery for the last 20 years.

Susan is thrilled to be carrying on the legacy of Jobi Pottery and proud of having a woman-owned business where the work is truly American-made, by local Cape Codders.

Admission is $20, paid at the door. Doors open at 5:30pm, no reservations.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Susan Kurtzman is the owner of JOBI POTTERY & Gallery, a legacy slip-cast pottery studio and gallery that began in (and has remained in) Truro since 1953. She is the former Curator of the Highland House Museum, Truro’s historical museum and a refugee from corporate advertising.

A California native, Susan began learning pottery at age 11 while attending a summer camp workshop run by Otto and Gertrud Natzler, world-renowned Austrian ceramists. She continued taking hand-building and wheel thrown pottery classes at her local junior high school and was selected by her high school’s program for gifted young artists to take a studio class at University of California LA (UCLA) while she was a high school senior.

Ms. Kurtzman holds a BA in Design from University of California, Berkeley where she studied pottery (i.e. was a hippie potter) and metal casting with Peter Voulkos and with Ron Nagle, both renowned California ceramists with international acclaim. Voulkos was an art innovator elevating ceramics from craft to fine art in the 1960s, his pieces are in museum collections worldwide. Nagle’s worked was shown at the 2014 Venice Biennale. He continues to show and teach in Northern California.

After receiving an MA Special Education from California State University, Kurtzman worked with with blind and visually impaired children and adults while writing a local arts column in the in a local newspaper. Her writing landed her in an advertising job in NYC and ultimately a 20-year career in advertising in both New York and Boston in the field of direct marketing. As a Creative Director, she managed writers, artists, illustrators and graphic designers at several large agencies before retiring as Executive Creative Director at Fidelity Investments in Boston.

Not until she moved to Truro did Kurtzman re-discover the her love for ceramics. After buying the Jobi Pottery business in 2003 from former owners Lee and Elizabeth Locke, she apprenticed under Joe (JOBI) Colliano for 2 years learning the slip-casting, hand painting techniques developed by Joe and his partner Bill Hastings.

This year, Jobi Pottery celebrates 70 years since it began in 1953 in Truro with Joe Colliano and Bill Hastings (JoBi). Susan has reached a milestone as well by carrying on the legacy of making Jobi Pottery for 20 years – still in Truro!