Clay Buddies: Eva Snyder and James Snyder
Hi, Eva and James! Tell us what you do here at East Fork.
James: I am the in-house Mechanical Engineer. I spend most of my time designing new tooling for our forming processes and managing the timelines for said new tooling. (Tooling refers to the parts of our machines responsible for forming the clay into our different shapes). I spend some time designing new equipment and tools—some of which you may have seen on Insta.
Eva: My current title is Senior Sales Operations Manager but I’ve held a few different positions at East Fork that all support inventory planning and management. I do inventory-related forecasting/modeling, pottery allocation among sales channels, and manage our fulfillment manager & data systems manager.
What are you most looking forward to in 2022 at work and outside of work?
James: At work I’m most looking forward to making a bunch more pottery with our new forming equipment. By the time this is published we’ll be in the middle of testing some new equipment! Outside of work...Eva and I are planning a trip abroad sometime later in the year, but that’s somewhat dependent on the state of coronavirus. We want to go to Japan for a late honeymoon!
Eva: At work I’m most excited about the new systems and processes we’re putting in place on the sales/ops team to support working smarter and less hard. I’m also excited about going into the new year with a good understanding of the shipping software and picking processes we implemented last year. Just having some things that are carrying over rather than knowing the wheel will be reinvented again. And yeah, we’ve been trying to plan a trip to Japan since 2019.
You were in Pittsburgh for a while, then spent a few years traveling and working for nonprofit organizations, is that right?
James: Yep, sorta.
Eva: Well, we both went to school in Pittsburgh and worked there for a few years at the same company. After that company hit some issues and laid off a bunch of folks, we built out a sprinter van and hit the road for about a year. We alternated between “vacationing” and working some short-term gigs. We worked for NextGen America (Tom Steyer’s superpac) and did some fact-finding/interviewing/field research for a woman who wanted to start a nonprofit, which ended up being a poor fit. We also packed holiday boxes, planted hemp, helped a Denver family move and I did some spreadsheet design work for Asheville Goods. We landed in Asheville in August 2017 and did the food service shuffle while we tried to figure out what to do next.
How did you end up at East Fork? Did you start at the same time?
James: We went to a Seconds sale on Boxing Day, 2018, and I saw that the person checking us out was wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates hat. I got a convo started about Pittsburgh and it turned out East Fork needed someone soon with Eva’s skill set. I was mostly doing freelance engineering work at the time. A few months later, Eva introduced me to Alex, and I started doing some odd freelance work here and there, which turned into a full time job after about a year.
Eva: Can’t do any better.
How did you two meet?
James: We met in Pittsburgh while working for the same company (designing baby care products). There was a small group of coworkers who got together for rock climbing at the gym, camping trips, bike rides, frisbee, slacklining, etc—and we got to know each other through those activities. What’s odd is that we never met in college. We were a year apart in the same major/minor at a fairly small school, and have a good number of mutual friends.
Eva: Thinking back, we had a lot of near misses in school, classes we both took early, clubs I was invited to that he participated in etc. One of my best friends spent a lot of time hanging at his fraternity house, but I guess we met when we were meant to.
Where are you from?
James: I was born and raised in downtown Philadelphia, near the Italian Market (if you know where that is). Fun fact, it turns out that Eva and I were born at the same hospital in Philly.
Eva: Yeah, my folks were in Philly when my sisters and I were born, but my younger sister has pretty bad asthma and they decided to move out of the city when she was about two and we ended up in Buncombe County. I went to Weaverville Primary and then Claxton Elementary, Hanger Hall & Asheville High.
When you get home from work, how do you make sure you don’t talk about East Fork all the time? Please don’t say you talk about East Fork all night, every night…
James: Ermm. We NEVER talk about work. Never…alright, it does happen, but not as much as you might expect. Sometimes it’s really helpful to talk about work after work to process the day, figure out solutions to problems, etc. We usually try to go for a walk or a jog after work, so we’re usually done with work talk after that.
Eva: I’m worse at this one. James is pretty good at saying, “Eva, I’m done talking about work.”
Is fitness something you pursue together? I know that between you, there is a whole lot of running and rock climbing, and probably lots of other cool things going on.
James: Ooof, bad timing for me. We haven’t done much climbing since the pandemic started, and I haven’t been keeping up with running since I injured my ankle last summer. We’re getting back into it though, and yes, sometimes we stick together with fitness. Eva is a much better endurance athlete than me, so we don’t often have the same end goal. A couple years ago we both ran the Table Rock Ultras, but I ran the 30k and Eva did the 50k. Last year (before the injury) we trained together to rike (run + hike) from our property in town up to the top of Mt Pisgah in a day. 30 miles for Eva’s 30th birthday. We’re currently getting back into a more frequent yoga routine. It’s a great way to wind down at the end of a long day.
Eva: We definitely like getting outside together, running, hiking, biking, walking, exploring etc. Movement is the primary way that I process and work through stress, so I definitely *need* it in a way that James doesn’t—he prefers more cerebral pursuits to recharge. That said, we both dialed the exercise intensity back a lot in 2020 since we had a very demanding puppy and spent way too much time working. I’m (slowly) starting to get back in a groove with running about 5 days a week and might start training for a fall 50k. Racing cross country from middle school through college was great in a lot of ways, but I’ll also always be fighting that voice in my head saying “you’re lazy” etc… James has been such a great influence on me because he doesn’t come from such an athletic-competitive background. He can still dust me on a bike and jump 100x higher than me, but he checks me when I start defining myself by metrics and achievements and reminds me that I run because it makes me feel good, gets me out of my head, and enables me to explore cool places. As far as climbing, we’re gym-boulderers more than anything, and the gym hasn’t really felt like a space we want to be during covid. I did pilates pretty regularly for a few years, but I’ve recently been feeling drawn back to yoga, particularly with so many more classes online. I feel like I need the mindfulness and gratitude practice as much as the core/stability work.
A good question (if I do say so myself) for people who have spent years living in a variety of places around the United States: what are some places you think more people should get to know?
James: Yeah—so many thoughts. After traveling all over the states for more than a year, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve barely scratched the surface of what this country has to offer. One destination that keeps popping back up in my mind from time to time is Great Basin National Park in Nevada. Pretty much in the middle of nowhere, this park is a gem. We only spent a little time there, but we were able to walk among ancient Bristlecone pines (they live for thousands of years), explore a cave, and generally enjoy the empty trails and long views. It was serene. If we go back, I’d like to climb to the top of one of the mountain peaks in the park. When we were there the weather was iffy, so we chose not to risk it. (Eva has some cool pictures from that park).
Eva: Definitely, there are so many more places I want to see, and so many I’d love to go back to. We really enjoyed Bozeman, Durango, & Salida when we stopped there, and honestly the classic western national parks are awesome, even when they’re crowded. Yosemite, even if you don’t climb (which we didn’t), it’s gorgeous, and I love Zion. There’s a little Redwoods State Park down by Santa Cruz that’s small but super lovely. I think Acadia is the most family friendly national park, super approachable and super beautiful in the summer. We want to go back in the winter and cross country ski on the carriage roads. I love a park where you can just walk around looking at the landscape and never get over it.
Speaking of your travels, what can you tell us about your time living in a van together? Do you think that your experiences in that year changed you as individuals and you as a couple? If so, how?
Eva: I feel like it’s hard to put a pin in how you’re evolving as a human, but we did learn a lot about America. We realized over and over what a tiny, advantaged slice of human experience we live in. Living on the road (a privilege in our case) and getting outside of our work-activity-home routine silo, we were able to see our privilege bubble with a lot more clarity. So we got a bit more cynical and moved even further left politically. We also struggled a lot of the time with feeling undirected and realized how much we find fulfillment in doing work we consider valuable. More extroverted van-lifers definitely form nomad communities, but we didn’t really do that, so we spent a lot of time thinking about where we wanted to land. We had the best time on the road when we had a predetermined destination (& arrival date) and could explore along the way vs. when it was super open-ended. It’s easy to face decision paralysis and get stressed out when you have too many choices. We still talk fairly often about whether we’d want to live on the road again. The current conclusion is that the ideal would be to live and work in one place, but to be able to take a month-long vacation twice a year. Unfortunately, neither of us wants to teach.
James: Instagram paints such an idealized image of #vanlife, but until you get your feet under you, half of every day is spent just trying to figure out where you can park, where you can get groceries, where you can find a shower or a restroom, things you take for granted when you’re living in a house.
Eva: We also confirmed that we get on very well in close quarters/together all the time. We didn’t always get along, but when you can’t actually storm away from the other person you have to work through it. I’m a lot more hot-tempered than James so I tried to practice explaining what I was feeling when I was mad vs. telling him he was doing something “wrong.” It was honestly more of an adjustment going back to working separately.
Back to work stuff for a moment: what are your favorite current East Fork glazes? What about retired ones?
Eva: I love Morel. Daniel (Vuono) says it’s the Hufflepuff of glazes, which I love. It’s an underrated, understated workhorse that really grows on you vs. getting exhausting, and it makes the rest of your collection look better. It’s not trying to steal the show. Going in a totally different direction, I also love Poinsettia. Three days days before the 2018 elections, I was canvassing in Charlotte and I called my mom from this random housing development between doors to ask her to go to the store to get me a couple of Bitty Bowls for James’s Christmas stocking (since they were selling out of seasonals in, like, a day). Of course she also got us a pair of Everyday Bowls and a pair of Cake Plates as a surprise. We were kind of surprised that in real life it was more of a cream of tomato soup red vs. the insta photos, whereas when Amaro launched it was actually a deep red so we now have both.
James: Morel is definitely the most represented glaze in our house. I also like Amaro quite a bit to add some darker earthy tones. I love a big bowl of ramen in one of our Amaro Soup Bowls. I don’t have a distinct favorite retired glaze, but I do really like Night Swim. I didn’t really like it at first, but it has grown on me over the years. Our first large piece of pottery was a Popcorn Bowl in Night Swim Eva got as a third from work. It makes quite the statement on our counter! [Editor’s Note: Thirds are pots with defects that make them unsellable. They are offered to East Fork employees for free.]
Weird hypothetical question: if you had to give away all of your East Fork pottery except for one single piece, what would you keep and why?
Eva: BAD BLUE! Lol. The first piece of East Fork pottery I ever bought was a Seconds Mug in a color that’s approximately Blue Ridge. Instead of an EF stamp on the bottom it has grease pencil that says “BAD BLUE PLUS 1% NEW IRON.” I went into the EF store a couple of days after a Seconds sale, thinking there might be something left and Connie was sitting at the old cash wrap nursing Luie and she pointed me towards a short row of wonky mugs and said she’d give me an extra discount because she wanted them all gone. I picked bad blue and an Eggshell Mug with a messed up “AVL” on it (back when EF used to do glaze resists with stickers!) and I drove to my food runner job at Rise Above Deli in our beater Volvo feeling a tiny bit guilty about the unnecessary splurge but also totally thrilled.
James: Our (my) Third Wave Mug in Spyder. I think it’s the perfect form for a weekend latte. It’s great for a tall cup o’ joe. It’s pretty dang good for an overindulgent mug of dark hot chocolate that you drink a couple hours before dinner and then feel a little too full to eat a proper meal until late. (Too specific? Never happens to me.)
What five objects have you chosen to share with us? What is the story behind each of them?
Titanium backpacking pot
Eva: I bought this pot just before our first backpacking trip as a couple (a week in Iceland, we’d been dating about a month). About a year later, just before we took off in the van, James wrote both our names on it in Sharpie before we took it to FloydFest (I miss music festivals). I remember I saw it after and was, like, “That was my pot!”—but it made me super happy, because I liked that James felt confident about things being “ours.” It was one of the first things that tiptoed around the idea of “forever.”
Bose Soundlink Mini
James: We got this little powerhouse when we moved into the van in 2016. A friend of ours worked at Bose at the time and strongly recommended it. The speakers in our van weren’t great. We still use it almost every day! We’ve listened to so many books on tape and countless hours of music.
Painting of Lotus Stems
James: This lovely art was done by my mom Alice Austin.
Gaggia Classic Pro in Matte Black
James: We only just got this, but it’s become a quick favorite. It’s amazing we’ve waited this long to get an espresso machine. Having a morning cappuccino is a big deal on both sides of the family tree. We’re still learning the ins and outs of it all, but it’s a fun hobby.
Eva: Dessert & cappuccino—family values we both grew up on, along with Nora Jones & The Buena Vista Social Club.
Tovolo Spatula/Spreader
Eva: We got this in Salida, Colorado, on our van trip because we needed a butter knife, and it’s useful for SO many things. I use it to mix sourdough starter, to get the last almond butter out of the jar, to spread icing on a cake, to mix up a little sauce, it basically lives in the dish rack.
And finally, you have very graciously shared the playlist from your wedding dinner. What do those songs represent? How did you feel when you heard the playlist with your guests?
Eva: I can take this one since I made it (James had veto power and contributed “What You Don’t Do”). I like to build playlists around how I want to feel when I listen to them and this one obviously needed to be happy, but also thoughtful and a little quiet. It starts out with our recessional song which is pretty celebratory, but transitions to more chill songs. It needed to be able to fade into the background unless you were taking a break from the conversation, and then it could kind of keep you company in that reflection. James listens to the melody & harmonies of songs first but I always focus on the lyrics, so the whole playlist is about holding on tight to things that matter, about people who realize what they have and are willing to do the work to keep their relationships strong. I also really looked for songs that were lyrically clever and creative within the theme and tempo constraints. Spotify added that “musical aura” thing to the 2021 wrapped feature, and the algorithm assigned me “hopeless romantic & fancy” which I think describes this playlist pretty well, where “fancy” describes a somewhat rococo approach to language.
Photo by The Adams Co.
