Ceramists tend to have an easygoing embrace of fate. Misfirings happen in the kiln, and happy accidents do too. Last year, as the New York City–based designer Danny Kaplan began canvassing for a larger Brooklyn workshop—a search complicated by steep rents and necessary buildouts—his longtime production manager, Val Shamma, shared that he and his wife were moving to North Adams, Massachusetts. “It occurred to us that maybe the solution was actually to follow him,” says Kaplan, best known for his sculptural lighting and furniture. The Berkshires city, like so many once-bustling mill towns, had experienced a downturn in the mid-20th century before art institutions like MASS MoCA helped put it on the cultural map. Former industrial spaces beckoned.…