When Vince Montague’s wife perishes in a tragic car accident, he is plunged into a world of grief. After weeks of loneliness and despair, he begins to explore his wife’s pottery studio in the wild hills of Northern California, teaching himself to mix clay, throw a pot, fire a kiln, trim and glaze. Just as his grief is ebbing and his future in clay is looking bright, a wildfire advances upon his studio and threatens to destroy everything he has created.

Cracked Pot is a singular book: a story of love lost and the labyrinthine path through grief, a meditation on the craft of pottery and its power to inspire and restore; a rumination on the life of a writer and the refuge of words; an examination of how generational family trauma can shape an artist. Montague’s haunting memoir is a kaleidoscopic and redemptive reading experience, one that serves to remind its readers about the cracks and the light.

Praise for Cracked Pot

“Cracked Pot is a soul-baring memoir of love, creativity, loss, grief, and creativity again. Sentence by beautifully wrought, thoughtful sentence, Vince Montague narrates the premature death of his wife, Julia, and how he was able to rebuild his life by way of the clay and kilns and inspiration she left behind for him.” — Benjamen Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer’s English

“Vince Montague’s Cracked Pot is a wondrous memoir of personal reinvention and the transformative power of art….This volume, like finely wrought ceramics, is something beautiful you can hold in hand and treasure always.” — Roy Parvin, author of In the Show Forest and The Lonelist Road in America

“Cracked Pot resonates with its multiple meanings and meditates on love and death from title to the last word. This is raw life, raw materials, raw feelings, salvaged by the silken slip of clay, the discovery of thinking with your hands.” — Maw Shein Win, author of Storage Unit for the Spirit House

Event Schedule

Instagram sensation, MoonDoBang creator Mr. Moon, Byung Sik, will make his first visit to the US with a tour of California and a stopover in Helena, Montana.

At the age of 16, Moon Byung Sik fell in love with clay. He had passion, but the skills didn’t come easily. It took him 10 times longer to finish a pot than some of his peers, but with perseverance and practice, he began to win skills competitions.

Post college, at 26, Moon started a studio practice inside his father’s barn with the idea that he would make pots he likes to make and—he reasoned—people would buy them. He soon discovered that what he wanted to make was not what customers wanted to buy. Competing for buyers with other potters who had 20, 30, or 40 years of experience was challenging.

As he reflects on his path today, starting at a young age was his best decision. He made mistakes and had failures due to his lack of experience, but he says that he was able to put aside his failures more easily and continue moving forward because he had less to lose.

17 years after he first sat at a pottery wheel, Moon operates a professional workshop where he produces his porcelain products and sells them from his gallery and shop in Yeoju, South Korea. He ships worldwide from his website www.moondobang.com Follow him on Instagram @moondobang

MoonDoBang : US Tour : How it all started

In November 2022, I had a chance to take a virtual pottery class with the Korean artist, Moon Byung Sik of MoonDoBang, hosted by Kala Stein. I casually mentioned that I would like to host a workshop for him in San Francisco.

Start: November 2022

Kala Stein and Joanne Lee, host and translator for Moon for the virtual workshop, set up a meeting to explore the possibility of Moon visiting the US, more specifically San Francisco and the Bay Area. He agreed to 10 days, which grew to 14 days. Then we decided to visit his friend, Adam Field in Helena, Montana,… who mentioned that he had contacts in LA and that if we were to extend and expand the tour, wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Plan : MoonDoBang US Tour: 2023

By mid December, I had commitments from 11 venues and most days were filled, with workshops scheduled from Petaluma down to San Diego, and Helena, Montana. Round-trip air from Seoul, Korea was purchased.

By the second week in January, scheduling was completed for Moon on his first visit to the US with a 24-day, 14-venue, 13-city, 2-state, west coast tour that includes demos, workshops, and an Instagram live feed.

In February, the last venue committed and a brainstorm led to the Virtual Demo with Moon and Adam Field from Helena, Montana, to be hosted by Kala Stein.

Show Time : MoonDoBang US Tour : 2023 

Moon lands in 6 days. 10 boxes of MoonDoBang porcelain pots have arrived. 150 Posters have been printed. 100 T-shirts have been ordered. His room is made.

Most venues have sold out all the seats, some within 5 minutes of opening registration publicly—some selling out only to members. Success can be attributed to Moon’s 97K Instagram followers, help from Adam Field with his 117K followers and mailing list, and the Instagram following of the 15 participating venues. Yes, the power of social media can be measured.

If you haven’t reserved seats yet, try Laney College: https://laney.edu/art/

Additional information is on the tour page on my website, mikisr.com: http://www.mikisr.com/moondobangtour,

Registration for the Virtual Demo with Adam Field is open. Registration can be found at KalaStein.com:  https://kalastein.thinkific.com/

When asked about what he would like to see and do while on his first visit to the US, he said, “eat a hot dog, see the Golden Gate Bridge, and go to a baseball game.” We have tickets to the Oakland A’s opener on March 30th, where Shohei Ohtani will be starting for the Angels. Kala is hosting a dinner and hot dogs are on the menu. And I’m sure we will cross the Golden Gate Bridge at least once.

Follow me on Instagram for more stories. @mikisr_ceramics