Always an artist and tinkerer, Mark attended the Penland School of Crafts on a two-year fellowship after college. There he was exposed to a variety of media and learned from the excellent teachers, mentors and highly skilled craftspeople at Penland and in the surrounding community of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He was introduced to ceramics and slip casting while in a class taught by Tom Spleth.

Chris, who had been a potter since high school, went on to study business and accounting in college and graduate school, eventually working for a large corporate accounting firm but continued to pursue his love of pottery.

In 2012, as Chris decided to leave corporate accounting and Mark completed his Penland Fellowship, the time felt right to take the opportunity to work together and Haand was born. The first year, the business was run out of a decrepit farm house with no potable water and mercurial electricity.