Paulus Berensohn (1933-2017) was a ceramicist, dancer, and arts instructor in Penland, North Carolina.
Berensohn was born Paul Bernsohn in New York City in 1933. Despite being dyslexic as a child, he was accepted into Yale University before dropping out in his first semester to attend Juilliard School, and later Bennington College. While in college, Paulus was finally able to pursue his childhood interest in modern dance and upon returning to New York City studied with Merce Cunningham and performed for Martha Graham.
Berensohn was first inspired to study pottery during a visit to the Land commune, a community of artists near Stony Point, N.Y., where he met the potters Karen Karnes and M.C. Richards. Richards would become a lifelong friend and collaborator. In the late 1960s Berensohn settled at the Penland School of Craft in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina where he taught workshops in pottery, movement, and journaling. Berensohn purposely avoided becoming a commercial artist, and for years refused to fire his clay works, often returning them to the earth. He became well-known particularly for his pinch pottery technique, and he published the book Finding One's Way with Clay: Pinched Pottery and the Color of Clay in 1972. He travelled extensively throughout the 1990s and early 2000s teaching workshops and lecturing on various topics. Later in his life he lectured frequently on the environmental and ecological philosophical topic of deep ecology, and how it related to his lifelong endeavors in the arts.