The Richard Mower video collection was donated by Richard Mower (b. 1929), a potter, professor emeritus in the art department at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, and founder of the Montgomery College ceramics program. The collection consists of 77 VHS video recordings of workshops and lectures that were part of the "Making It in Clay" series held at Montgomery College in cooperation with Montgomery Potters, the Washington Kiln Club, and Ken Dever's American Hand gallery between 1978 and 1981. Lee Eagle of Eagle Ceramics provided financial support. As part of the series, visiting potters also had one-person exhibitions at the American Hand gallery in Georgetown, thus the lectures and workshops at Montgomery College not only inspired students and local ceramists but created an informed audience of potential buyers. The shows routinely sold out.
Included are videotaped demonstrations by Ralph Bacerra, Doug Baldwin, Cynthia Bringle, Michael Cardew, Tom Coleman, Val M. Cushing, Ruth Duckworth, Ken Ferguson, Steve Howell, Susan and Steven Kemenyffy, Marilyn Levine, David Leach, Warren McKenzie, Jane Peiser, Don Pilcher, Juan Quesada, Elsa Rady, Adrian Saxe, Toshiko Takaezu, Byron Temple, Patti Warashina, Gerry Williams, and Makoto Yabe. The videos provide a valuable visual record of each artist=s working methods and teaching style. Mower donated them to the Archives Afor future generations to witness the intensity and creative energy of the potter.

 Selections from the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America

In June 2000, Nanette L. Laitman gave the Archives a generous gift for the creation of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, a five-year initiative to record and transcribe 100 interviews of prominent artists working in clay, glass, fiber, metal, and wood and to collect their personal papers.
To date, the Archives has conducted forty-eight oral history interviews for the Laitman project, including recordings of James Bassler, Garry Knox Bennett, Irena Brynner, Arthur Espenet Carpenter, Michael Cohen, Fong Chow, Val M. Cushing, Ruth Duckworth, Arline M. Fisch, Michael Frimkess, L. Brent Kington, Harvey K. Littleton, John Marshall, Norma Minkowitz, Ed Moulthrop, Jere Osgood, Rude Osolnik, Merry Renk, Mary Ann Scherr, Cynthia Schira, June Schwarcz, Kay Sekimachi, Frances Senska, Heikki Seppä, David Shaner, Philip Simmons, Ramona Solberg, Bob Stocksdale, Robert Chapman Turner, J. Fred Woell, and others.