Research chemist/regulatory professional turned ceramic artist

Cool article in the San Diego Union-Tribune: 

It’s not an accident that Bounaud has explored new solutions to turning his abstract concepts into visual reality. The San Diego-based ceramic artist — born and raised in the Provence region, about an hour north of Marseille — had a longtime career as a research chemist with a Ph.D. in chemistry from New York’s SUNY Stonybrook. He moved to San Diego to work at the Scripps Research Institute and then at a biotech company.

“But I was getting burned out doing research and I needed an outlet,” Bounaud said. “I needed something else to take my mind off the pressure. My mom recently retired from being a schoolteacher and had taken up pottery and she would tell me about it. I had a chance encounter at the Hillcrest Farmers Market with a pottery teacher who had a booth there. She was teaching at the Educational Complex Center. I took her flyer and thought, ‘Why not try it?’ I did, and got hooked right away.”

Interesting how so many former bench chemists get their kicks out of creating in other media.