Brownville potter puts his home into clay pottery with local materials

BROWNVILLE, Neb. (KOLN) – Bill Robbins makes pots out of whatever materials he can find that work. He turns bed springs into birdhouse hangers and uses rubber furniture rollers to carve designs.

“I also collect rainwater, and that’s what I use to mix my clay and stuff,” said Bill, the owner of New Earth Clay Pottery.

He makes his creations using Nebraska clay from a company in Endicott, and he’s already made a glaze from materials that are all from Brownville. While he and his wife have an incredible attachment to the area, they’re not even from Nebraska.

Bill was introduced to pottery in 1971 while he was living in Rochester, New York.

“When we left Rochester, I knew I was going to be a potter,” Bill said. “I came home to our apartment, and I said, ‘I know what I’m going to do the rest of my life.’”

He met his wife Paula at a bus stop after Woodstock. Then Bill’s brother sent them a letter from Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

“And the letter said, ‘We like it out here, you would like it too,’” remembered Paula. “So we had all of our worldly goods.”

“And two cats,” added Bill. “And $125, and we went west.”

The sense of community kept these city kids in the country.

“When we went to Scottsbluff, we were hippie looking,” Bill joked. “I mean, my hair was almost as long as yours. And nobody gave us a second look out there.”

The bluffs is where Bill also met a high school art teacher who gave him the resources and the encouragement he needed.

“I walked away from that wheel probably a dozen times, and the instructor was very helpful you know,” Bill said.

The Robbins eventually moved near Fairbury, with Bill working in production at a brickyard and in road construction. But he’s always made time for pottery, starting out by selling flowerpots.

“I said, ‘You’re going to be making pots until you just can’t do it no more,’” laughed Paula. “So, we got to sell them somewhere.”

In 2016, the couple retired and moved to Brownville, where they set up a studio, a shop and a periodic, down-draft kiln.

He makes birdhouses, piggy banks, large pots, mugs, wall hangers and much, much more.

As Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Robbins called the business New Earth Clay Pottery.

“I came up with the name – it’s actually based on a scripture from the Bible,” Bill said. “2 Peter 3:13, where it says, ‘There’s new heavens and a new earth that are waiting according to God’s promise.’ So, we call ourselves New Earth Clay.”

Now Bill puts as much of his home into his work as he can.

“Since I moved to Brownville, Brownville was like – they opened their arms to me, you know,” Bill said.

He’s even developing and testing a clay from Table Rock, Nebraska. And his Brownville glaze covers his functional pottery in the surrounding Loess Hills, dirt and wood ash.

“I just felt like I wanted to make Brownville a part of my process, you know, because they’ve been so good to us,” Bill said.

Now New Earth Clay Pottery is on the corner of 4th and Main Street in Brownville. The shop operates out of a big, yellow house that was built in 1863.

You can view more of Bill’s processes and equipment by visiting his Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Click here to subscribe to our 10/11 NOW daily digest and breaking news alerts delivered straight to your email inbox.

link