Tim Nolin's father, Milton, became interested in pottery while watching a potter at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. The man was making reproductions of colonial inkwells on a homemade treadle wheel at the rate of one every three minutes. Upon returning to his South Bend, Indiana home, Milton discovered a flyer in his vacation mail announcing pottery classes at the South Bend Art Center. He became "hooked" while taking his first 10-week course, and built his own potter's wheel and bought a used electric kiln.

Midway through his sixth 10-week course, he moved to Parke County, Indiana, the "Covered Bridge Capital of The World." Local tourism officials who were encouraging the development of local artists hired Mr. Nolin to develop and teach beginning. A dozen or more of these continued and, together with Milton, formed a potters' group. The tourist association built a shop for them in Billie Creek Village, a re-created early twentieth-century tourist attraction. Milton recruited Dick Hay and three of his graduate students from the ceramics department of Indiana State University, and together they built a catenary arch kiln which Milton designed.

Though employed as a local Presbyterian pastor and also pursuing graduate work at Purdue University, Milton used after-hours and vacation times to produce wheel-thrown stoneware and raku pots for sale during tourist events. He produced as many as 1,000 raku pots to fire and sell during the annual 10-day Covered Bridge Festival. Tim Nolin and his sister, Nancy, and their friends helped Milton with aspects of the raku firings and sales.

Upon finishing his Ph.D. work at Purdue, Milton moved to Nevada to accept work as a university professor, with the demands of that job severely limiting his involvement in his pottery hobby. Still, he continued occasional wheel work, and designed and built a studio and an updraft gas-fired kiln. He moved back to the Midwest in 1995 to care for his elderly parents in Ohio, and in 2001 moved to southern Indiana. His studio and current home are located four miles from Tim's home, and in retirement he continues his hobby as an occasional potter.