About Tír na nÓg Pottery

I am a potter with a studio in the Original Rainier Brewery in Georgetown, Washington. I experiment with glaze recipes, study the shapes of plants, and spend a lot of time with little hand tools carving designs into clay (a technique that is referred to as Sgraffito*).

*Sgraffito (Italian: [zɡrafˈfiːto]; plural: sgraffiti; sometimes spelled scraffito) is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colours to a moistened surface, or in pottery, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive layers of contrasting slip or glaze, and then in either case scratching so as to reveal parts of the underlying layer. The Italian past participle “sgraffiato” is also used, especially of pottery.

In Irish mythology and folklore, Tír na nÓg or Tír na hÓige (“Land of Youth”) is one of the names for the Otherworld, or perhaps for a part of it. The neighborhood of my studio space often seems to be hiding ever-changing and strange little doorways…