Like many of you, ceramicist Casey Hankin is a regular summertime Breckenridge visitor.

And like many other artists, Hankin had another career before taking that leap of faith to follow his passion of producing creative pieces of fired clay. He came here from California to be a school counselor, putting that master's degree to good use.

He attended Chico State University in northern California, where he met his wife and they moved to the Bay Area to attend graduate school at Cal State-Hayward, earning his master's in counseling, the 48-year-old thrower of clay says.

Hankin's decorative pieces are eye-catching and colorful, grabbing the attention of art festival-goers.

"My work is wheel thrown and sculpted clay, all original and no molds or shortcuts are used," he said. "I then fire my vases and works using the Raku process."

Raku is a 400-year-old technique from Japan, where the piece is pulled from the glaze firing at its hottest point — 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.

Various post-firing techniques are used to achieve the final product, including horsehair application, where the hair is actually melted/burned into the piece to achieve a beautiful and earthy pattern; and reduction, which eliminates oxygen to develop metallic colors and variations on the surface of the vase as well as crackle patterns and other effects.

"This application allows for a more personal connection to each piece throughout the artistic process," he said. "It also helps me to control the desired aesthetic more from an artistic point of view."

Excerpts from 2015 SummitDaily article.