Laura Harmon - Featured Artist July & Aug. 2022

I was introduced to pottery in 2003 by taking a class at the Olympia Community Center. I figured one class would be fun, I had no intention of pottery becoming such a big part of my life. Joann Gaither was teaching then and she was the perfect teacher for me, I learned so much from her. In the first class she would sit down and work with the new students, we would hand build pieces using three different methods; pinching, coiling, and slab construction. I continued with her classes for several years. A lot has happened since, the biggest is that I now have my own studio and kiln (thanks to my husband who built the studio and is so very supportive of my obsession). Below are a few photos of my studio.

I settled on slab construction, I love the variety of shapes that are possible. You don’t need much equipment for slab building; a good quality rolling pin, some slats with accurate thickness for rolling slabs to the desired thickness, and miscellaneous tools. For me stamps are essential too. People ask me all the time how I emboss the texture on my pieces, stamps! I have a mighty large collection of stamps; hand carved wood stamps, embossed rolling pins, and small roller stamps. Here is a photo of some of my stamps.

I love how one shape will lead to another, I never run out of ideas. When I am working on a new shape I often make several with varying curves, sizes and proportions of width, depth and height. The photo below is an example of how I varied the shape when making six sided vases.