Close your eyes and wrap your hands around a perfectly imperfect tumbler or pot by Boulder, Colorado, ceramicist Steffanie Woodward and you’ll find that her porcelain creations feel just as good as they look. Perhaps that’s because the founder of Lera Ceramics often makes her one-of-a-kind pieces with her eyes closed.
“There is something about ceramics that is visceral to me,” she says. “It’s almost meditative.” Woodward encourages that feeling by hand-building each functional object—without a potter’s wheel and using minimal tools—in her Airstream trailer-turned-studio using the techniques of pinch, coil and slab before finishing them with soft white glazes and doodle-like line drawings. “My work isn’t perfectly symmetrical, straight or smooth,” she says, “but the combination of simple and minimal with the added beauty of imperfection is special.”
Shop for Woodward’s designs online (or eventually again, locally) at Meek Vintage, the Artisan Center and at Guest House shoppable homes, and stay tuned for new items to covet, including ceramic and woven wool wall art.
