Ben Maier is celebrating a lot of things these days. For just a couple, it’s the 20-year anniversary of his eponymous ceramics gallery on Main Street near Leland’s Fishtown, and right next door, the opening of his and wife Caroline’s grab-and-go lunch/gourmet food shop called Picnic, which opened its doors quietly last week and has its opening-day soiree today, Monday, June 27.

They own the two buildings. They’ve been married 10 years, have a set of 8-year-old twin boys, Trey and Bode, and another son, Chase, 3-1/2, and they’re madly in love. “Our moms set us up,” says Caroline. More on that later.

Ben designs and makes all manner of contemporary, colorful wood- and soda-fired tableware and decorative items for the kitchen, home and office from his studio at the base of Leelanau County, across Center Road from Brengman Brothers Winery. Maier is witnessing the symbiotic support of local businesses in and near Leelanau County that carry his work, such as the restaurant/market Farm Club and others. After all these years in business for himself, that thrills him. “I love to see my pottery in such a beautiful presentation, and see it alongside other makers too, in a different context.” Ditto, with the new shops and eateries that so many young entrepreneurs have opened recently “with the energy to make some exciting things happen,” he says.

Maier’s work has caught the attention of some big names farther flung from Leland. He is a Makers Market sales partner with Steelcase, the leading U.S. architecture, furniture and technology products and services corporation headquartered in Grand Rapids. His lustrous pieces are showcased on the company’s website under a heading that touts its “renowned designers from around the world.”  The JW Marriott in Grand Rapids displays sets of his modern nesting bowls in its lobby as a notable Michigan Maker, and the Mercy Healthcare System in Grand Rapids also has purchased and displays his work.

So much has come to fruition since this 44-year-old Traverse City native grew up on Old Mission and attended Greilickville’s Pathfinder School as an elementary student, where his artistry began to bloom. His early summers were spent at a family cottage on Lake Michigan, giving him an appreciation for the beauty of the natural world.

After graduating from Traverse City’s East Junior High and Central High, in 1999 he completed an international study program in Copenhagen, Denmark, on the rise of the European Union, then headed to Bates College in Maine, to study economics and political science. But as Maier, a follower of Buddhism, explains, “the universe was telling me to work with clay, and I listened.”

So he was off to Jamaica to study wood-fired ceramics, and was forever hooked.

From 2002-10, when he wasn’t in Traverse City or Leland, or exhibiting in prestigious clay shows around the country, he absorbed himself in workshops from master potters at MSU in East Lansing, Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, CO, and New Bedford, MA (there, in an immense, walk-in brick kiln), learning this ancient craft.

“For the first four years I had my gallery, I was just living and working and breathing ceramics with laser focus,” says Maier. Not long after, Caroline Kovas, who was visiting from her home in Chicago, appeared in his gallery, after her mother told her the night before that she had just “met the man you’re going to marry.”

Three kids later (they all like to help in the gallery) and now with another business in the family, they both work hard; besides the new Picnic shop, she’s also director of content marketing for Guild Education, whose mission is to help working Americans learn professional skills needed for the future.  

“I have watched Ben grow his business every year,” Caroline says. “He’s dedicated to his craft and is constantly innovating. He’s a consummate learner, and he has really transformed his business.”

Ben is moving toward a new creative path. “Right now, I’m in the middle of an investigation of how pottery, design and production intersect,” he says. “I’m trying to streamline more, be more production-driven, but also to still do one-of-a-kind art.”

He loves his studio work because it gives him rhythm, purpose and a sense of order. He makes his own glazes, too, but he wants to hit a point where he can take a break, create a whole new body of work, and until now the pottery processing has been slow. 

“The atmospheric firing of raw clay, the Japanese method, is about as primal as you can get,” he says, adding that one batch of pottery takes six cords of wood and three days in his kiln to dry. So he’s created a handsome stoneware line that he has been firing without glaze, using his new Dutch state-of-the-art Blaauw kiln that fires in only eight hours versus 22, cools in 12 hours versus three days, and uses about 1/15th the amount of gas.

“It allows me time to grow my business, and to grow as an artist — I’m now learning about surfaces and textures that were right in front of me.”

Benjamin Maier Ceramics is at 104 N. Main St, in Leland. Next door at 102 Main Street, Picnic has a gathering today from 4pm to 8pm with tastings, music, and camaraderie. The corner landmark is now offering ice cream and house-recipe waffle cones; candies and locally made fudge; fresh sandwiches and dips, salads, and charcuterie.

Pictured: Ben & Caroline Maier; Maier's pottery.

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