Updates from the Studio | Chester Gap Potter

After a year of building the studio and a summer of glaze tests, the pots finally have a place to be seen that isn't a shelf in my kitchen. This site is small on purpose: the work, a little about the studio, and a way to reach me. It will grow as the shelves do. People ask why a potter would settle in Chester Gap. The honest answer is that the mountains chose first. We came for the ridge and the quiet, and the studio followed, tucked into the perennial gardens so that the walk from the house to the wheel passes through whatever is blooming. Clay takes its time. So does this place. The two suit each other. There is a long tradition of pottery in these hills, from the old salt-glazed crocks of the Shenandoah Valley to the stoneware coming out of small studios up and down the Blue Ridge today. I'm glad to add a kiln to it. Most days that means bowls and mugs, things meant to be used rather than kept behind glass, fired in the electric kiln when I want the color to carry and in the gas kiln when I want the clay to have the last word. For the mountains Blue Ridge Before the light, the ridge is only line, a long dark breath drawn over the gap. Then fog lifts out of the hollows, slow as glaze runs down a bowl still warm from the kiln. The rock underneath is older than clay, older than the hands that first pressed a rim into a river bank and called it a cup. It holds the gap the way a bowl holds a morning. By noon the blue is back, layer on layer, each ridge a little paler than the last, the way a good glaze breaks at the edges and lets the body show through. Thank you for visiting. If you would like to see the pots in person, the studio is open both days of the Fall Art Tour, November 7 and 8. Until then, this is where the news will be.