The artist

Alesha

Alesha is the artist behind Goose Fire Ceramics. She builds the forms, decides what each piece should look like, and does the carving and glazing that makes them hers.

She also holds a full-time office job. Ceramics is what she is building toward.

Alesha at her workbench in a tan leather apron, holding an open clay bird form. A faceted geometric clay bird sits in the foreground. — Alesha at the bench with a clay bird form.

A studio put together by hand

The kiln came off Facebook Marketplace for a hundred dollars. The pottery wheel came the same way, for not much more than that. Shelving, benches, and most of the tools turned up one piece at a time.

It is a studio assembled with resourcefulness, and it works.

Moulds, and what she does with them

Alesha is always on the lookout for slipcasting moulds. She buys them, borrows ideas from them, and then puts them through something more than the mould intended.

The moulds she makes here are cast in plaster from printed forms. The ornament designs we use come from Old Forge Creations, who publish 3D files for exactly this kind of piece. Casting, trimming, carving and glazing are all done in this studio.

A wire rack of plaster slipcast mould halves, some retaining carved leaf and pinecone relief, some emptied after casting. — A rack of plaster moulds, some still holding their carved relief.

Geese, pigs, and a lot of evenings

Give Alesha a goose and she will give it a personality. The pigs get the most attention, and the least seriousness. She has spent a lot of hours in the studio, a good number of them late at night.

Making ceramics full-time is the dream. For now it sits alongside the day job, which is how it is getting built.

Jesse

Jesse is Alesha's partner. He helps run the studio, shoots the video, and makes ceramic ornaments of his own.