Handles day: the Summers mugs, part 2, and a birthday box of new tools
Scoring, slipping, pressing and cleaning a full set of mug handles for the Summers order, plus the first clay on a box of new birthday tools.
Advice I’d Give My Younger Self in the Studio
The advice I'd give my younger self in the studio: slow down, master the basics, and treat failure as part of the apprenticeship.
What Failure Has Actually Cost Me
Failure in clay is quiet. It costs time and confidence more than clay, and it pays you back in discipline.
Electric vs Gas Kiln Firing: What Changes in the Pot
Electric firing taught me control. Gas taught me humility. A plain comparison from a potter still learning both.
Why I Don’t Make Bright, Colorful Pottery
Bright glazes are impressive, but they never felt like mine. Why I make quiet, earthy, high-fire pots instead.
What Matters Most Isn’t the Surface
Surface photographs well, but weight, balance and form are what people feel first. Why the glaze can never save a weak pot.
The Pots You’ll Never See
Not every pot that survives the kiln leaves my studio. Why I hold back the almosts, and what letting them go has taught me.
Making Pottery in a Small Mountain Town
What it is really like to make pottery in a small mountain town like Logan, Utah: the isolation, the logistics, and the clarity.
What Kind of Potter I’m Trying to Become
On choosing steadiness over trends: earth tones, high fire, a salt kiln, and refining the same forms instead of reinventing them.
The Real Reason I Fire to Cone 10
Cone 6 is easier. I fire to cone 10 anyway, because high fire glazes mature into the clay instead of sitting on top of it.
Why Logan, Utah Shapes the Way I Make Pots
Long winters, dry air and the colors of Cache Valley: how living in Logan, Utah shapes the way I make pots.
Why I Choose Functional Pottery Over Decorative Work
Why I make cups, bowls, plates and pitchers instead of sculpture, and why function keeps my work honest.