The Art of Making Stoneware Pottery With Guy Wolff

Guy Wolff is America’s cherished potter, specializing in horticultural wares, but every now and then he takes a break from making flowerpots to create pieces of pottery he hopes will be around for a couple thousand years. Earth, water, fire and air are harnessed to create beautiful pieces of stoneware that speak to the very essence of Guy Wolff’s motivation as a craftsman.

By: Rajiv Surendra

Show: HGTV Handmade

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Photo By: Christine Han

Storybook Greeting

Guy Wolff Pottery is set just off the main road in Bantam, Connecticut. Known mainly for the flowerpots he makes, Guy has over 50 years of experience throwing pottery. As a young potter, when I first read about Guy I was taken by the way he made pots with a historic influence, drawing from shapes that were made over the past couple hundred years. The very first summer I visited Guy’s shop, I had just graduated from the University of Toronto. I drove my mom’s car for 10 hours to get there. Now, after 12 years of visiting this place, the charm still hasn’t worn off. Every single time I spot that red wheelbarrow, I smile.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Time Stands Still

Guy’s shop is divided into two rooms; the salesroom and the workroom. The salesroom is original to the building, dating to the early 18th century. The workroom sits at the back, and stepping into this space has the effect of time coming to a stop. It’s a completely utilitarian and functional space, and yet the tools, the lighting and every single surface covered in varying transparencies of clay dust creates a setting that has an impact on everyone who visits it.

From: Rajiv Surendra

A Common Interest

Over the past 12 years of our friendship, there have been moments when Guy and I will take a break from making pottery and go into town for breakfast or browse the local shops. It always amuses me to notice glances from strangers who are trying to figure out what the dynamic is between me and Guy. That’s endearing to me — to realize that what brought two strangers together was a deep passion for clay, the potter’s wheel and an obsession to keep learning by doing.

From: Rajiv Surendra

An Old World Request

In my final year of college, I read an article about Guy in Martha Stewart Living. At the time, I’d already been throwing pottery for eight years, and learning about Guy’s flowerpots and the historic inspiration behind their shapes made me realize that this was the person I wanted to learn from. I picked up the phone and called, asking if I could possibly apprentice with him over the summer. He politely declined, explaining that every hour of every day in the shop was time he needed to spend making pots, not teaching.

I felt defeated, but wondered if I could convince him that I would not get in his way, that I’d be happy to just be there and watch, and that I’d gladly do the grunt work of emptying slop buckets and mopping the floors. So I wrote him a letter in calligraphy and was thrilled when he said that I could come down for a visit. That was the summer of 2009.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Making Friends

Guy loves to laugh. Within minutes of meeting him that first summer more than 10 years ago, I felt right at home with him and his family. He can be very serious about his work, the integrity of the pieces that we’re making in the shop, and the philosophical aspects of being an artist and craftsperson, but he and I are also constantly making each other laugh like crazy. It means a lot to me that we both know how and when to not take ourselves too seriously.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Craft and Art

Guy spends most of the year making flowerpots. He has a routine and method of producing these pots with impressive speed and ease, and watching him fill the workroom with pots that are all the same shape and size has been a big inspiration for me. But every now and then, he slows down to make pieces that are more artistic than solely functional. These decorated and glazed stoneware shapes entail a few weeks of preparation and work to produce.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Listening to the Material

Guy has almost a spiritual connection to clay. Over the years, he has made it very clear to me that in order to throw successfully, a potter must fully understand how to respond to what the clay “wants to do.” "Full command over the medium" is what true master craftsmen achieved in the days of guilds, apprenticeships and royal commissions. An element of that applies to my relationship with this man; I put aside my ego and listen to what he tells me to do. And then I try. It is often challenging, but that’s why I sought him out: I want the person I admire and trust to push me to keep improving.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Throwing the Wares

Unlike the process of creating flowerpots, where each shape is repeated time after time on the wheel, Guy allows the clay to guide him when making stoneware pieces. These are shapes that bloom out of the inspiration while throwing that specific piece of clay.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Porcelain

My favorite clay to work with is porcelain. It’s a refined clay that has the temperament of what Guy describes as “a grandmother who heard you swear one time and never let it go.” It is beautifully white and smooth, and can be thrown extremely thin while still holding up its shape. It was while making porcelain bowls by the dozen that I understood what Guy meant by responding to the material — it was as if I could just feel that the clay wanted to be thin and delicate.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Dressed for Eternity

Unlike a flowerpot whose average lifespan entails just a few decades if it’s lucky, Guy sees the stoneware pieces as works that may be around for a couple thousand years; the clay body is fired at such a high temperature it becomes vitrified (changing its molecular structure to that of glass). When decorating the pots, he repeatedly reminds me to think about the pot “getting dressed for eternity” — so the pressure is on! Every line that I put on the pot, he tells me, needs to be carefully considered. We referenced Korean, Japanese and Chinese pieces from the 9th to the 14th centuries, and the masters of this art emphasized the shapes of the pots through their decoration. They weren’t simply painting beautiful flowers onto vases.

From: Rajiv Surendra

In the Family

Guy’s daughter Elizabeth is an accomplished artist in her own right, with years of illustration experience — pen, ink and watercolors — that eventually led to her own venture: making and selling tin lamps pierced with her designs. I arrived at Guy’s initially to learn about pottery, but his whole family has an artistic streak. Being with them feels like a camaraderie of constant artistic growth. Over the years, I’ve learned so much from not only Guy, but his wife and kids, too. They’ve made me feel like part of the family.

From: Rajiv Surendra

The Art of the Line

Guy is constantly stressing to me how important it is to be able to see (and make) a line — a fluid line, a curve, an arch. These elemental lines are the backbone of his flowerpots, subtly nuanced silhouettes that make his work so prized and sought after. Lizzy’s lamps (@piercedtinlamps) are the perfect example of how years of looking at a line are put into practice. The punched holes are a challenge to keep fluid when grouped together, but she’s made hundreds of these. The ability to "pull" or "throw" a stroke — on both tin and clay — is the result of much practice.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Colbalt Practice

Cobalt oxide is used for the blue decoration of the stoneware pieces. Guy had me practice painting with it before I attempted to paint directly on the vases. The lines need to be fluid, he stresses, and any hesitation on the part of the painter is visible on the final piece ... and that is going to be around “forever." No pressure.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Banding

Guy makes many of his own tools used in the pottery. It’s made me see how wonderful it is to create a specific object that serves a very niche purpose. In my early attempts to paint a band onto the bowls, the brushes we were using weren’t holding enough slip to complete a single turn of the wheel, so I made this little banding brush using a bamboo skewer, some wire and the bristles of a brush used for latex house paint. Worked like a charm.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Ready for Glazing

Once Elizabeth and I finished decorating the pieces, we set them aside for glazing, the final step before firing.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Fluidity

Guy glazes all the pieces himself to ensure they’re coated smoothly and evenly. He mixes up the glazes "from scratch" (nothing premade or purchased in a bottle or jar) using recipes that go back hundreds of years.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Firing Begins

The outdoor kiln, used solely for stoneware firing, is loaded with the wares and sealed up before propane-fueled flames are ignited to heat the interior. The flames heat the kiln up to about 2300 degrees Fahrenheit, which it takes about twelve hours to reach.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Elemental

As night falls, watching the flames shoot out between the spaces of the brick makes me think of how long humans have been making pottery. For thousands of years, people have been digging up clay from the ground, mixing it with water to create shapes that are both useful and beautiful, drying it out and then making it solid and tough using fire.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Strength in Form

Opening the kiln once it has cooled is an event that’s awaited with eager anticipation. The variances in the glazes are vast and dependent on temperature, the presence or lack of oxygen, and even the rate of cooling down once the flames are turned off. Every piece that comes out of the kiln feels like the birth of a new being, something that is going to be around for a long time.

From: Rajiv Surendra

Responding

Pottery is a hobby of mine, but I remind myself that it’s Guy’s livelihood. He spends every working day with his hands in clay, and it’s physically hard work. There are long afternoons where he and I will be throwing pieces for hours without saying much to each other, just focusing on the task at hand. Sometimes he’ll take a little break from throwing and play the banjo in the salesroom for a few minutes. I’m in the other room, listening. I very often ask myself how this all happened, how I could possibly have convinced this man to let me into his life and his workspace, and allow me to learn from him. I wonder how I became a part of his family, cooking dinners alongside his son and daughter, and drinking coffee with his wife in the morning at the kitchen counter, in cups she made herself. And I am at a loss for a solid response. I once asked if I could come and stay for a while, and they said yes. And I am very, very grateful.

From: Rajiv Surendra

The Art of Making Stoneware Pottery With Guy Wolff

Related To:

Shop This Look

Storybook Greeting

Time Stands Still

A Common Interest

An Old World Request

Making Friends

Craft and Art

Listening to the Material

Throwing the Wares

Porcelain

Dressed for Eternity

In the Family

The Art of the Line

Colbalt Practice

Banding

Ready for Glazing

Fluidity

Firing Begins

Elemental

Strength in Form

Responding

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