Four Hands One Heart: Ed and Mary Scheier

"a touching portrait" - American Craft Magazine

Meet one of America's greatest artist-couples of the 20th century - Ed and Mary Scheier. Follow their seven-decade love story - from a chance meeting as struggling Depression-era artists, through their rise in New Hampshire to the top of the American studio pottery movement. Today their work is coveted by major collectors around the country and the world. Supported by the federal Works Progress Administration, Ed and Mary Scheier started out as artists in the rural south. Upon meeting in 1937, they became traveling puppeteers, but soon found a better way to earn a living - making pottery. Turning an old log cabin in Glade Spring, Virginia, into a pottery studio, the Scheiers taught themselves how to find clay, throw pots and fire glazed ceramic pieces. As teachers at the University of New Hampshire the couple became celebrated, winning national awards year after year, and seeing their work collected by major museums. In 1968 Ed and Mary retired from pottery, moving to Oaxaca, Mexico to work in media inspired by indigenous craft traditions - weavings and wood sculpture. The Scheiers moved back to the U.S. ten years later, settling in Arizona, where Ed returned to the potter's wheel to produce some of his greatest works. Mary Scheier passed away at age 99 in 2007. Ed Scheier discovered computer art, creating numerous digital paintings, before his passing in 2008.

Four Hands One Heart, the documentary, celebrates the spirit of this talented couple and shows how a loving relationship, the daily practice of art, devoted friendships and a little luck can make for a lifetime of longevity, creativity and wit.

Four Hands One Heart, has aired nationally on PBS through American Public Television since 2001. For broadcast information visit: www.aptonline.org.

Now Available in DVD with these Special Features:

  • Mary Scheier studio movie - an eight-minute movie filmed in the 1950's shows Mary Sheier producing a tea-pot from lump of clay to kiln
  • Ed Scheier studio movie - a seven-minute sequence filmed in the 1990's of Ed Scheier throwing and decorating a bowl in his Arizona studio
  • Ed Scheier computer painting gallery - a six-minute "slide-show" of Ed Scheier's work in his newest medium in a new century - the computer as a digital painting tool

Running time: approx. 46 minutes.
Written and directed by Ken Browne.
Original music composed by Lorraine Nelson Wolf, www.nelsonwolf.com.
Narrated by Frances Sternhagen.

Toll-Free Orders: 1.800.20.NHPTV (1.800.206.4788)
Order Online: To purchase visit the online store at the Currier Museum of Art


Ed and Mary Scheier

Pottery by the Scheiers

A Ken Browne Productions and the Currier Gallery of Art film, in collaboration with the University of New Hampshire's Office of Sustainability Programs and the University Library.