Charles Fergus Binns

Binns's ceramic technique focused on the vessel as a utilitarian object. His work include vases, urns, and bowls. Binns threw each piece in three forms on a wheel, turning them on a lathe and piecing them together afterwards. One of the concepts Binns taught was 'dead ground', in which aspects of making that could not be precisely controlled, such as firing temperature or glaze calculations, were mitigated by control over glaze placement - e.g., glaze was to run to a certain point but not to encroach on the foot. Binns wrote of the artistic limitations of china-painting, which many amateur artists, mainly women, practiced at the time. He argued that “no-one with a spark of artistic fire can be content to copy the design of another or to merely add the finishing touches to work begun in a factory”, and that this feeling has caused china-painting to give place to pottery-making, in which, from “the consciousness of honest effort”, the artist experiences liberation. His book The Potter's Craft (1910) may have given rise to the first use of the phrase “studio pottery”. In it Binns referred to "studio work" and the "artist potter", and a review of it in Adelaide Alsop Robineau's magazine Keramic Studio referred to “studio pottery”. As a critic and influential educator in the ceramic field, his praise of utilitarian wares with artistic quality led the Arts and Crafts movement in American studio pottery.

Binns authored several books about ceramics. Among these was The Story of the Potter published by George Newnes in 1901, prior to his position at as director of the New York State School of Clayworking and Ceramics. He was an avid contributor to Keramic Studio. Binns had had a significant effect on the development of the studio ceramics movement in the United States, and is thus known as the father of American studio ceramics.

Examples of Binns's work can be found in museums around the world, including: • Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, Alfred University, Alfred, NY • Art Institute of Chicago, IL • Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY • Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA • National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC