Evan Williams & Grace Pejouhy Pottery
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About the pots: We throw our pots from a chocolate brown stoneware clay which we mix ourselves.  We decorate the pots using a combination of brushwork and brushed or dipped kaolin slips.  Our glazes are formulated using locally harvested raw materials like granite and shale clays mixed with wood ash from our kiln.  The kiln is a small downdraft kiln which we built ourselves using salvaged bricks.  It takes about twenty long hours of stoking with waste wood we acquire from a local sawmill to reach almost 2400 degrees.  The wood firing process adds a unique warmth to each pot through the interaction of flame and ash with the clay surface. Our pots are art intended to be used.  They contain no hazardous materials.  You may put our pots in the microwave and bake food with them in the oven.  However care should be taken and common sense used.  As with most ceramics, uneven heating and sharp temperature change can lead to cracking.  So don't transfer your casserole directly from the freezer to a preheated oven and warming up your favorite mug or teapot before pouring in boiling liquid is a good idea. About the potters: We met about five years ago at Miranda Thomas Pottery in Vermont where Evan was doing production and Grace was starting a summer internship.  Grace had studied ceramics at Earlham College and Evan at Syracuse University.  Grace went on to do a apprenticeship with Todd Piker at Cornwall Bridge Pottery in Connecticut.  Back in Vermont we established our workshop in the Bridgewater Mill just down the road from our home in Woodstock.      "My focus is on the forms of the pots - the swells of pitchers, the way beakers feel when grasped and drunk from, the open invitation of platters...  I was a math nerd in high school and though I have done little with it since, I still love the beauty of sine curves which echoes in variations in much of the traditional pottery I respond to and have attempted to create.  I try for simplicity and quietness in my pots.  They are aspects that can be difficult to find in life and hard to hold onto.  I want my work to be subtle reminders of peace in people's daily lives."                             Grace Pejouhy "I do most of the decorating and I throw the larger pots (and some small ones too).  I often use a  kaolin based white slip as a basis for my decoration.  The slip, whether painted on or dipped and finger wiped contrasts strongly with the dark clay body.  Glaze formulation is a particular passion of mine.  Using local natural raw materials like wood ash, stone, and clays as much as possible combined with vigorous, free brushwork and slip wiping gives the finished pots a feeling of liveliness and  vitality. "                         Evan Williams