Photos: Justin Chung
Interview: Leigh Patterson
What’s the first thing you do after you wake up?
I usually take it pretty slow if I can after I wake up, let the dogs out, and then am onto my morning coffee before checking in on my garden.
What’s your go-to morning beverage and how do you make/take it?
I almost always start my morning with coffee….I look forward to it! I have an Alessi Moka Pot I inherited from a friend who passed away a few years ago, and it always feels like a small homage to him when I make my coffee. I’ve come to enjoy all the tedious steps of cleaning the Moka Pot and prepping it to brew. In the summer months, we have a cold brew pitcher we keep in the fridge. And whether I’m drinking iced or hot, I always take my coffee with cream.
What’s the best seat in the house for drinking your morning cup?
I usually sit in my living room or walk around my garden with my coffee if the weather is nice. For a long time while we were working on our house, we didn’t have a proper living room so I take a lot of pleasure now in being able to sit in a comfy chair with my coffee in the morning and look out at the view.
You’ve made a lot of mugs. In your opinion, what makes a truly perfect one: in form, feel, function?
Oof! Mugs are such a personal thing—this is almost impossible to answer. I have a few design non-negotiables when I’m making a mug, like a lip that doesn’t dribble, a comfortable handle, and good overall balance. There are endless ways all of this can be achieved, but in my opinion a handle should be flat, not round, so it fits better into the geometry of a hand and feels more secure when you’re holding it.
That said, I really think a truly perfect mug is the one that you enjoy holding and drinking out of most. It doesn’t have to meet any design standard if it brings you joy. Whenever I sell mugs in person, I make people hold and pretend to drink out of them until they find the one that speaks to them.
What’s your own favorite daily drinking vessel that you use at home or in the studio?
I have a big collection of different mugs that I’ve collected from fellow potters and my travels over the years, and I’ll go through phases with all of them according to my mood. I hate those metal insulated to-go cups so I also always have a loose mug of coffee precariously balanced somewhere in my car.
Lately my rotation has included: a few of my own mugs in different styles. A large Peter Shire mug. A Kat & Roger cup. My favorite mug of all time is a woodfired one by Paul Herman, the founder of Great Basin Pottery in Doyle, CA. I used to visit his little roadside pottery operation every summer and catch up with him until he passed away a few years back.
You started as a pastry chef, and clay came later as a way to engage differently with your hands, your creativity, and the world. What was it about those first experiences that really stuck with you?
I started baking professionally very young and was fully immersed in it for almost a decade. Before that I had studied art in Mexico and I think picking up pottery felt hugely liberating to me at the time. It was a relief to know I was capable of more than just baking and really loved the process of learning how to throw. There are many ways to wax poetic about clay, and I generally think all of it holds truth! For me, especially in the early years, I really appreciated the focus and meditative attention it takes to throw.
What are some specific influences that have been formative in shaping your sense of taste and aesthetic? Have any of those shown up in both your time as a pastry chef and your work in clay, even if in different ways?
In many ways my influences aren’t always something I take huge notice of. I think the obvious themes of nature and architecture are very present in my work, but I try to hold some distance between myself and my influences to leave room for what shows up intuitively. My latest working evolution was sparked by seeing a nautilus drawn into the dust on the back of a car. I think a lot of what shows up in my work can be traced back to random and mundane moments like that.
What new ideas, forms, or details have been showing up in your work lately—whether sparked by intuition, a specific curiosity, or just a shift in what’s been interesting you?
I have been trying to let myself make more of the work I personally want to be making and less of the work that feels safe from a commercial standpoint. I’ve been making a new collection of one-of-a-kind vases that definitely draw off ornate historic architectural details. I’ve also been integrating shell themes and motifs into more of my work; it feels like a natural evolution for me…there’s endless inspiration to find in them!
In your version of a perfect day in the life, what’s on the agenda?
I think a perfect day for me would be in a specific area of the Sierra Nevadas near a lake or river with no cell service. In a day-to-day sense it would be a slow morning with a nice breakfast, an easeful day in the studio, some time in my garden, a long walk with my dogs, and a nice dinner with friends.
Do you listen to anything while you work? If so, what’s been playing lately?
Music can be a tricky one for me in the studio! I find I can get really distracted by a lot of music that I’m overly familiar with if I’m not in exactly the right mood for it. NTS Radio has become the thing I listen to the most. I like that I can always find something fresh to listen to and often some surprises that I love! I’m a big fan of their House Music/Techno station for working. I’ve also been really enjoying the album “Endlessness” by Nala Sinephro and all of the Stereolab discography.
What’s one meaningful “ritual” you do daily, even if you’re not really thinking about it?
I’m not terribly ritualistic in my day to day and my morning coffee is definitely where I notice this the most: I have a whole routine of laying out a dish cloth, cleaning the Moka Pot while the water boils, grinding the coffee, and trying to fill the basket without spilling grounds. I also like to warm my mug up with hot water while the coffee brews.
Zoe Dering (@zoedering) is a ceramicist working in Sebastopol, California.
