‘A Big Heart’

In the video, you can only see Mark Campbell’s hands, blunt-fingered and already pale with clay slip, wedding band still visible as he cups a tilted little volcano of clay turning drunkenly on the wheel. He presses it to a symmetrical cake before scraping the bottom edge to clear the excess. Then digging in at the top, he hollows the form and coaxes it upward, wider, into a tall, elegantly curved bowl. It’s still spinning as he gives the camera a clay-slick thumbs-up.

Campbell died at home in his sleep Dec. 10, at the age of 57. His straightforward, sturdy, color-saturated bowls, cups and fermenting crocks reflect an aesthetic and a mission borne out in the meals he made for those in need at St. Vincent de Paul’s free dining facility in Eureka, first as a cook and later as a board member, spearheading the Empty Bowls fundraiser: to make something useful and joyful.

Born in Seattle, Campbell was raised in Huntington Beach and moved to Humboldt County to attend then Humboldt State University. As he told the Journal in 2023, “I graduated from HSU with an art degree to become a full-time cook.” Over a 28-year career, he cooked at restaurants including Humboldt Brewing Co., Crawdaddy’s, Cin Cin, the Eureka Inn’s Rib Room, Bayfront, Humboldt Bay Bistro and others.

Cooking alongside him for many of those years was his best friend Brett Obra, owner and chef at Humboldt Bay Bistro. The pair, who regularly took trips to fish and cook at Big Lagoon, where Obra also served as best man at Campbell’s wedding to Shawna Chance-Campbell, met in 1998. Back then, the chefs shared the split kitchen at fusion restaurant Cin Cin in Old Town, with Campbell working on the Italian side and Obra at the teppanyaki grill.

“He knew his shit, that’s for sure,” says Obra. “He helped me with the bistro, to get it up and rolling.” Unlike some who lose their cool in high-pressure kitchens, Campbell, he says, “was an inspiration. He just kept his demeanor and he never blew up.” Instead, Campbell always had a smile on his face. When they worked together at the Eureka Inn, Obra recalls Campbell taking the bus to work shifts at St. Vincent de Paul, then heading to the Rib Room for dinner service, then another bus home after a beer in the Palm Lounge with Obra.

Campbell worked in the kitchen at St. Vincent de Paul’s free dining facility for 14 years, becoming its manager. “I found out I like cooking for homeless people more than I like cooking for rich people,” he told the Journal in 2023. Returning as a volunteer, he said, was even better. “I find it more rewarding now that I’m not getting paid. I find things these days more enjoyable when I’m giving freely and not benefiting from it. I like helping people.”

Marylee Price, who has worked at the dining facility for more than two decades, helping serve some 200 people a day, says Campbell’s death is felt hard among the staff and regulars (“A Hot Meal at St. Vincent de Paul,” Nov. 17, 2022). “There’s not a person who knew Mark who didn’t love Mark,” she says, gesturing from the kitchen to the last of the lunch crowd at tables around her. “He’s known a lot of those people forever.” She echoes Obra’s assessment of Campbell’s temperament, noting even the toughest, rudest visitor couldn’t rattle him. “He’d just say, ‘Whatever, dude,'” she says, smiling down to her hands.

Retired priest Michael Cloney, whom everyone calls Father Mike, says of Campbell, “He was a community service person.” In addition to his regular Thursdays, Cloney says Campbell took shifts to help out when needed, like when Price was struck with COVID over Thanksgiving. As for working in the kitchen with Campbell, “It was a blast,” says Cloney. “He was so creative. ‘Whatcha cookin’ today, Mark?'” Cloney says he was amazed by the meals Campbell put together from donated ingredients, as well as his energy. “It’s fun to be around him.”

A candle and a framed printed photo with a brief biography of Campbell stand at a table by the entrance to the dining facility. Beside it are a couple sheets of stationery on which people have written messages of thanks.

John Doherty, a tall man with gray hair under his ball cap, comes over to greet Price. He’s recently had a heart transplant and, living alone, says he’s had to manage his own care and physical therapy. “Thanks to Mary and this facility, I get a good meal every day. It’s good for my heart — good for the outside of my heart, too,” he says, smiling and extending an arm to Price. He, too, says he’ll miss Campbell. “He was like an old friend,” he says.

“He just lived a life to serve others,” says wife Chance-Campbell. “Money did not matter to Mark. … He cared about love, community, family. Those were the things that mattered to him.”

The couple met in 2003 at the Eureka Inn, when he was working in the Rib Room and she was in housekeeping. Over the phone, she laughs recalling how he’d pursued her. “He chased me so hard,” she says, catching her breath. “He told me every day that he loved me. He treated me like a queen.”

Campbell, who has a grown daughter Shelley from his first marriage to Kathy Campbell, also has two teenage children with Chance-Campbell, John and Hannah, with whom he’s spent the last few years as a mostly at-home dad while running his pottery business from the house. Chance-Campbell says he also pitched in with her sister and her five children, shuttling them to appointments and cooking dinner for everyone. “What he did for the community, he also did at home. It was not a front,” she says.

Mark Campbell Ceramics has been bustling, says Chance-Campbell, with his made-to-order fermentation crocks in perhaps highest demand. After finally retiring from the restaurant work that paid the bills, she says he saw an ad for a wheel for $100 on a board at HSU in 2010, bought it and “went back to clay.” She estimates he’s sold some 3,000 pieces through Etsy and more via Facebook. He also started a Facebook group called Clay Buddies, which boasts some 57,000 members from around the world who gather online to share their work and support one another.

Ceramic artist Cate Be says she knew of Campbell through the Clay Buddies group and was amazed to find he lived in Humboldt County. Like the group, she says, Campbell was “very supportive of artists not only in this community but across the country.” Last year, Be and Campbell, who’d both won the Journal‘s Best Craft Artist award, collaborated on the Empty Bowls fundraiser (“Filling Empty Bowls,” May 25, 2023). Modeled after a national grassroots fundraising effort, the event sells handcrafted bowls donated by artists and soup donated by local restaurants, with the proceeds going to support operations at St. Vincent de Paul.

“He had a dozen [bowls] that he could not glaze anymore,” says Be. “He didn’t have access to certain spaces that would allow him to do the work and he asked me to glaze them for him.” It was a change from her illustrative style and usual porcelain pieces, but she went for it and did high-fire glazes for bowls that would have both their names on the bottom. Happy with the resulting “golden horizon” effect, they kept one bowl each, sold the rest and planned to collaborate again this year.

“We were talking over the years and we finally got to work together … it was the one and only time, and I’m really grateful,” Be says. She’s also glad she kept one of their bowls. “I’ve been eating out of it all week.”

Be is also pleased about Campbell’s 2024 Best Craft Artist win. “He’s very supportive,” she says. “To see him get that … I’m so glad he got that acknowledgment from the community.” His pieces, fired with mid-range heat and made from white stoneware, allowed the bright colors he favored to come through the process without fading. The pieces — plates, bowls, cups, water jugs and crocks — all have purpose in a household, but the colors and textures take them beyond utility.

“His style is his own,” says Be. But more than the collaborator, she’ll miss Campbell the person. “It makes me sad because I don’t have a father anymore,” she says, having just lost hers unexpectedly. Campbell, she says, was a fatherly figure, “He was just very supportive and open to hear you and make time for you.”

Bob Santilli, board president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Redwood Council, says he met Campbell on one of his Thursday cooking shifts and Campbell was the first person he recruited to join the board. The two became friends and golfing buddies over time. “He wanted to give back. He’s always had a big heart for the St. Vincent de Paul mission.”

Santilli marvels at Campbell’s broad talents and how he brought his connections to the ceramics world and the restaurant world together to make Empty Bowls a success. The past two events have each sold 200 to 250 pieces of pottery and offered 15 to 20 soups each year. “He was definitely the spearhead of that event,” he says, adding that the board is talking about whether they can manage it this year.

“He brought a lot to the dining facility at a time when it needed an uplift of spirit,” says Santilli. “He was bringing international recipes … brought in May [Siricharoen], and between the two of them, they were making really delicious recipes, like butter chicken from India.”

Siricharoen, an accomplished chef herself and the owner of Tasty Thaiger, enjoyed helping Campbell add new dishes to the typical roster of meals. “Mark has a really good heart. He tried his best with all the ingredients we have,” she says. “A part of him, he still have that chef in his mind.”

Campbell asked if Siricharoen wanted to cook at the dining facility after she applied for a position at a summer camp last year, and they quickly became a team. Not content to just crank out the usual industrial cafeteria food, Campbell cooked chicken teriyaki, cheeseburger mac and cheese from scratch using bechamel sauce and roasted pork with apples. “I got a chance to do [holiday meals] with him … it was crazy,” she says with a laugh, recalling the days of prep and the mass of volunteers.

Teaming up with Campbell and Obra for a 250-person dinner for the Farm Bureau was a higher-end challenge, but one they met with a lot of excitement and good humor, she says. “He’s very passionate; he’s very humble. He just has a big heart,” and, she notes, was always willing to help out for free, expecting nothing in return. “It’s a big loss.”

Betty Chinn, founder of the Betty Kwan Chinn Homeless Foundation, says Campbell’s death is a huge loss for the community and for her personally, having known him since his college days. Along with his work at the dining facility, he cooked and carved for her annual community dinner at Christmastime, a tradition that’s returning Dec. 23 this year after a COVID-driven hiatus. It was an event they’d been talking about just before his death.

“Whether I need help or have a tough time, he’s always there for me,” she says, recalling how he came to her house and helped her cook back when she made meals for those in need at home. He sometimes transported loads of donated clothing and helped with shopping, too. He and his wife, she says, also looked in on her when she was sick.

“He knows I’m getting older, so he always reach out and say, ‘Betty, what can I do?'” But, she says, Campbell would never ask for anything in return, and refused anything she tried to give him — even a small gift of candy — saying he would only give it to someone else. It was his style, she says, to help people without judgment and without hope of reward. “I’m very grateful for him in my life.”

Family and friends will wait until after holidays to hold a memorial, which Obra has offered to host at Humboldt Bay Bistro. He says a number of former coworkers are planning to come up for that, but Campbell’s absence will be felt far and wide in the community. “He’s gonna be missed by thousands of people.”

Chance-Campbell is working with neighbors to glaze and fire the pieces her husband didn’t have a chance to finish. She also hopes she can help the Empty Bowls event to continue, noting some people have expressed a desire to donate to St. Vincent de Paul’s free dining facility in Campbell’s name.

“He loved that place,” she says, “and he wanted to make sure there were funds to keep it going.”

To donate or learn about volunteering at the St. Vincent de Paul’s free dining facility, visit svdp-redwoods.org.

Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill and on Bluesky @jfumikocahill.bsky.social.

This article appears in ‘A Big Heart’.