NAMES IN THE NEWS : Jim Bakker Takes Up Pottery

Fallen evangelist Jim Bakker is becoming something of an artist. Bakker, serving a 45-year prison term at a federal facility here, has been making pottery behind bars. For Father’s Day, he sent his 83-year-old father, Raleigh Bakker, a vase bearing a painting of Bakker’s childhood home in Muskegon, Mich.

The PTL founder, convicted last year of 24 counts of fraud stemming from the way he raised money at PTL, began taking ceramics classes shortly before Christmas. His first creation was a ceramic mug containing ceramic hot chocolate and ceramic whipped cream. He gave that to wife Tammy Faye, who has a ceramic food collection in her kitchen in Orlando, Fla.