Next Up: Fall Online Restock
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH 4PM PST
-January-open to commissions
-April 13 & 14 Northwest Art Alliance: Best of the NW-Seattle, WA
-Spring Online Restock-April 19
-June 21-23- Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts
-Fall Online Restock-September 13
December 7 & 8- Wild Arts Festival-Hillsboro, OR
Winter Online Restock TBD (in time for holidays)
2024
Pots are available for sale through an online shop on this website (with in-studio pick up and worldwide shipping) several times annually (early, mid, late year) and at a few rotating in-person art festivals and open studios.
calendar
Finishes
Glazes are formulated in-house
and fired in an electric kiln.
Plover- Matte, moderately-opaque, cool white over black stoneware. The organic movement of the glaze during application alludes to the black clay underneath, especially along rims, somewhat mimicking an atmospheric firing. The texture is less satiny that the other two finishes, more stone like
Pipit- Warm gray, semi-translucent satin-matte. Somehow the coziest of the finishes, if there is a way that makes sense, the glaze movement and dark stoneware make an electric oxidation firing more resemble a wood or gas firing. Edges and rims often appear “toasted.”
Ink- The most uniform of the three glazes, developed from a different base. A satin-matte finish over black stoneware with some movement, the most translucent of the three. glazes. Recently reworked for a truer black.
PIT FIRE
Into The Actual Fire
Pit fired pieces are made with a white porcelain-stoneware blend. The pieces are tucked into individual pouches of aluminum with various combustibles, mostly from the chickens: pine shavings with all kinds of droppings, poo, feathers, grain and seeds, eggs shells, and dried leaves and vines from the garden and some steel wool for good measure. They are fired in an above ground pit, stoked to around 1500°F, then deprived of oxygen and left to smoke and cool overnight. The effects are a result of letting go and letting the elements do what they will. You’ll see swirls, wisps, and clouds of smokey blacks and grays laid over the white clay, with some darker impressions where high density matter has combusted, and occasional smatterings of rusty oranges and even pinks sometimes where metals interact. But because it’s me…mostly black and grays.
LULA Pottery is Carisa Miller and a flock of chickens in a backyard garden pottery studio since November 2018.
Photos and videos of potter (and chickens) in action are rampant and strangely popular on Instagram and are accompanied by a good bit of observational humor and AuDHD commentary. A YouTube channel is underway as of summer ‘24, including some longer form videos and LULA Pottery: For Your Ears, an audio series (podcast) on pottery, wrapped in existentialism.
Carisa’s work is minimal, prioritizing form and function. Lines are clean, and surface decoration scant. The pieces create an organic impression by utilizing black, locally produced stoneware under neutral tones of semi matte glaze formulated in-house. The pots are meant to blend into their surroundings as quietly beautiful, intimate and essential companions.
about
$5 of every LULA Pottery purchase of $35 and over goes directly to the World Central Kitchen providing emergency food relief to populations in crisis.
Since opening shop in November 2018, your combined LULA purchasing power has contributed $1,415 to the World Central Kitchen,$3,600 to the Natural Resources Defense Council $410 for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services $1,080 for the International Rescue Committee $1250 for Planned Parenthood and the National Network of Abortion Funds through raffle-to-win-pottery and portion of sales fundraiser events.
That’s $7,755 of your giving as of July 2024.
Thank you