I listened to Phil Rogers today talking about his life as a potter and he said this:

I think ones work is always a reflection of what you've seen and reacted to and what's turned you on and for me that's always been other pots. Other potters look at things outside the potter world, but for myself I've always been more interested in seeing other pots from other cultures and ages and so on, and hopefully at the end of it all what happens is that you assimilate all of those influences and something comes out the other end that is a little bit yours rather than any body elses.

I look at a lot of pots by other potters too. My favorite