Pat Burns grew up in a small town in central Minnesota surrounded by pastures and lakes. She found her way to clay at Berea College in Kentucky and found inspiration in the pots being made in Minnesota and England. Burns worked in potteries in England, Canada and Minnesota before setting up a studio in Portland, Oregon with Andy Balmer.

Burns works primarily in porcelain and it has always been her aim to make sturdy as opposed to paper-thin porcelain. She has been playing around with simple lines that are inlaid with a colored slip. Burns loves the process of carving the lines, brushing in the slip and scraping away the residue to produce a clean line — it requires a meditative concentration that she finds soothing. Burns soda-fires the porcelain to add an unpredictable element to the work.