What I make...
For your home, galleries and boutiques: clay pottery and ceramic items for your kitchen and entertaining--soup bowls, pasta bowls, platters, mugs, dishes, pie plates, creamer/sugar sets, serving items and spoon rests. These also make great gifts for weddings, birthdays, holidays, friends or even yourself!
For home décor: clocks, sculptures, horses, zebras, fish, balloons, angels, wall hangings, animals, masks, human forms and vases. Also great for gifts!
For cremation urns: clay pottery ceramic containers for ashes, hand crafted burial urns: Adult urns, child urns and pet urns, companion and keepsake urns in many forms and styles. I work with a variety of themes in the design and creation of these urns/vessels. This allows me to be the most flexible and creative: I make each piece individually. Although I have multiple requests for some of the popular items, each one is handcrafted and might vary slightly from the previous one. I also take special requests for custom urns and am able to assist customers in selecting something that would be pleasing and appropriate for their needs.
Check out the CUSTOM ORDERS for URNS I have created for my customers!
For home décor: clocks, sculptures, horses, zebras, fish, balloons, angels, wall hangings, animals, masks, human forms and vases. Also great for gifts!
For cremation urns: clay pottery ceramic containers for ashes, hand crafted burial urns: Adult urns, child urns and pet urns, companion and keepsake urns in many forms and styles. I work with a variety of themes in the design and creation of these urns/vessels. This allows me to be the most flexible and creative: I make each piece individually. Although I have multiple requests for some of the popular items, each one is handcrafted and might vary slightly from the previous one. I also take special requests for custom urns and am able to assist customers in selecting something that would be pleasing and appropriate for their needs.
Check out the CUSTOM ORDERS for URNS I have created for my customers!
This is the urn I made for my mother's ashes.
Maidenhair Fern
12.25"h x 7"d
177 cu in
Maidenhair Fern
12.25"h x 7"d
177 cu in
Technical Stuff...how I make and fire pieces.
Each piece of pottery is uniquely designed and handmade/handcrafted out of clay using a variety of methods:
I personally design, create and make all my work.
These are the various firing methods I use to add excitement to the finishes. All pieces are bisque fired, changing the structure of the clay to make the pieces stronger when applying the glazes.
- “thrown” on a potters wheel
- using a slab roller making flat pieces to combine into a final piece
- sculpted/carved and hand built
- molded with slip (special soft clay) for pouring into forms that I handmade out of plaster
- extruded using a variety of dies (designs) for the extruded piece
I personally design, create and make all my work.
These are the various firing methods I use to add excitement to the finishes. All pieces are bisque fired, changing the structure of the clay to make the pieces stronger when applying the glazes.
- Oxidation firing for glazing is done in an electric kiln to about 2185 degrees. The firing process takes up to 36 hours from the start until the temperature in the kiln cools down to 130 degrees and the pieces are cool enough to remove from the kiln.
- Raku firing is a Japanese method of firing, using propane gas, and is very fast. Pieces are fired to about 1750-1850 degrees in a very short time, usually an hour. Some pieces are placed directly into a container (a small can with a lid) with newspaper, leaves, or wood shavings inside, which ignites immediately, creating a “reduction” environment. The lid is placed quickly onto the container causing a chemical reaction to both the clay and glaze. This can result in iridescent colors and/or crackle glaze effect on the glazes, and the clay body turning black.
Some pieces are not put into the reduction container, but moved to another station, for another decoration or treatment. Horsehair and feathers can be placed carefully on the piece, burning an image or design onto the surface, which usually does not have glaze on it. It has been brushed with an extremely fine slip called terra sigillata, and burnished to a sheen prior to the bisque firing. These pieces are quite striking! It might also have ferric chloride (a caustic) sprayed onto the surface at this time, creating a bronze color on the piece. Horsehair can also be applied at this time to this piece. - Pit firing is another method of firing (and probably the oldest method). In this manner a pit (or hole) is dug; sawdust, copper stain and salt are mixed with the sawdust, and the pieces of bisque fired pottery are placed into or on top of the sawdust. Then wood is added in various sizes to cover the pieces of pottery. Ideally, dried cow piles (obviously not always available) can be stacked against the wood to hold in the heat. This is the method used by the American Indians. The fire is lit, and is left to burn out completely taking 5-7 hours, so that the ash from the wood falls off the pots. As the air hits the fired pieces, various colors can develop. This can also be done in a large drum or garbage can to achieve similar effects.
- Sagger firing is another technique, similar to pit firing, but the pieces can be covered in foil with various items inside between the foil and the pot that cause various colors to appear. Banana skin, onion skin, salt, horsehair, copper carbonate, copper wire and a number of other things to create an atmosphere inside the foil that causes color changes! You never know what you will get!