When James Klein and David Reid started their ceramics studio in 1993, they dreamed of working with Eva Zeisel. Six years later, they were introduced and invited her to work with them on any projects she might like. They also gave her one of their vases. Her eyesight dim, Zeisel turned the vase in her hands. "Oh," she said, with admiration. "You're trying to make things perfect."

By then, production ceramics had moved from modernism's austere geometries to the opposite extreme. Designers made their work "look as handmade as possible," says Reid, even if that meant including phony throwing lines in the molds. He and Klein, by contrast, wanted to emulate their midcentury inspirations by producing precise forms.

Zeisel does not evoke emotion simply by playing with clay. Rather, she writes, it is "the clear formulation and control of the sweep of the line, the modulation of shade, the disposition of mass … that brings the object from the sphere of purely sensuous pleasure … into a spiritual sphere."