Growing up in Seattle, Hayne Bayless first got interested in clay when he found an old potter's wheel and kiln in a corner of the high school art room. The art teacher knew enough about pottery to point him to Leach's A Potter's Book, and that became his guide. Other than lessons with a potter in Tokyo as a late teen, Hayne managed to avoid any formal education in ceramics.

Hayne abandoned wheel-throwing early on, lured by the freedom that hand-building offers. He set up his first studio in a tiny basement he shared with a washer and dryer, a stack of snow tires, mice and the snakes that ate them. The workspace amounted to a little more than a hundred square feet. To navigate the cramped quarters he sometimes had to slide sideways, and since then it’s been Sideways Studio. It also applies to a certain way of looking at things; instead of encountering an idea head-on, you might approach it from a different angle, even sideways. It can help avoid the traps of your own assumptions and biases. His studio is larger now and still cluttered, but he doesn't have to walk sideways.