Kristen Kieffer

Coming up this weekend is my Holiday Studio Sale (November 5th & 6th), and while I would love for every single one of you to visit me here in north central Massachusetts, I realize that’s just not possible. Part of visiting an artist in their studio is to buy unique items and support handmade, but the other part is to see where the artist works every day. Those of you living beyond New England’s driving distance can always shop directly from my studio online in my Gallery Store and Pottery Shop. While it’s not exactly dropping by and sifting through pots on my shelves in person, it is the next best thing. For everyone (those who live within shipping range and those who live way beyond), I decided to circle my studio and shoot some of the tools and objects that surround me everyday to help fulfill in some small way the “glimpse behind the scenes” reason to visit.

Pictured above: The doormat that welcomes visitors to my space features big flowers, which remind me that spring will eventually come when there’s two feet of snow on the ground. An old tumbler of mine and three-tiered candy dish (from Ikea) hold my most-used tools and reside on a lazy susan in the right corner of my seven-foot work table. And, the large buckets of glaze, which live under my work table and are rolled out when I’m ready to pour and dip the glazes I mix.

My test tile board (test tiles are the ceramic artist’s paint chip) displays my current palette of satin and glossy glazes both alone and over stripes of underglaze colors, and new test colors. The chest-high foundation wall of my studio is a great shelf and keeper of many tools, including this decorative tea tin for my pens and markers, and collaborative ceramic basket by my grad professor Brad Schwieger and me for my brushes. A pound scale is a pretty typical tool in a potter’s studio (even of this era) for weighing amounts of clay, like the cups in the background that started as a pound and an eighth ball. I bought my scale at a re-sale shop when I lived in Detroit two years before having a studio in which to use it!

On my potter’s wheel sit my throwing tools in a bowl I made while working with studio potter John Glick (1997-98), and have used in multiple studios since. Also visible is the backrest I lean against while I stand to throw to keep my back healthy. Behind my wheel, à la laundry-hung-to-dry style, are lots of influence images. I couldn’t bring myself to tape or push-pin into my new walls yet, so this works and is fun for easy adding and subtracting. Other than me, the workhorse(s) of my studio are my ware boards. These 1″ x 12″ x 36″ boards are my shelves and allow me to tote pots (12 cups fit on one board, for example) from my wheel, to my studio shelving unit, to my kiln shelving unit and back again with relative ease, as well as make the shelving units themselves flexible for holding short items to tall.

Lastly, pictured left is a partial collection of influence objects I’ve picked up at antique stores, resale shops, and apparently anywhere else (like the plastic sandwich “triangle container” I think would make a great flower brick form).

That’s my studio at a glance! I hope some of you can swing by to see it in person and shop elegant for the holidays on Nov. 5th & 6th!