Kirkwood Clay

Kirkwood Clay is Greensboro, North Carolina's newest pottery studio. We create unique pottery that is a balance of both form and function.

The path to our small business has been full of surprise and serendipity. A long, long time ago on a long, Long Island, Scott took pottery lessons while in high school. This small experience planted a seed that would long lay dormant until ten years later. We met as middle school teachers in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. When Tiffany went back to grad school, we moved to North Carolina, fell in love with Gr

eensboro, and settled in. As a holiday tradition, we invest each year in something we can both enjoy. While we have gotten a lot of use out of our GPS and our iPads, the best thing we ever did was invest in pottery lessons at our local cultural arts center. We fell in love with pottery immediately. While our class was only once a week, we talked the other instructors into letting us attend their classes as well. We found ourselves in the studio every night after work and all weekend! Our lives revolved around open studio hours. We even moved downtown across the street from the arts center to cut down on our commute! After we got engaged, we decided to make ceramic favors for our wedding! Each guest took home a mug or tumbler, and this was the first time others were the recipients of our wares. We got amazing feedback and continued to give away pottery as holiday and birthday gifts. When our coworkers and family started requesting specific pieces and offering to pay, it just clicked! When we bought our first home, we immediately set up a pottery studio in our backyard. We drove ten hours round-trip to pick up a used kiln and wheel that we found on Craigslist in Charleston, South Carolina. We tiled and painted the studio ourselves late into the night, fueled by Cookout milkshakes and craft beer. Our little pottery studio (pictured above) matches our cottage home with its cedar shake shingle siding. You may recognize this siding as we use our home and studio in many of our listing backgrounds! Once our home studio was ready and our first few items came out of the kiln, we opened our Etsy shop. Our lives have never been the same! All our clays are sourced regionally in North Carolina. We use clay from Asheville and Star, NC (we’re happy to support StarWorks!). All of our pieces are made in our back yard by our four hands. Each piece is hand-thrown on the wheel and then dried for several days. All pieces are then bisque fired to approximately 1800 degrees. Then we sand and wash each item, allow it to dry, and apply glaze by dipping or brushing. During the final step, our ceramics are fired to approximately 2200 degrees, which strengthens the stoneware and vitrifies the glaze, resulting in a smooth, beautiful glassy surface. We absolutely love that Etsy gives us the opportunity to sell our handmade items on a global scale. Our ceramics have found their way all over the US and into Canada, the UK, and even Korea and Japan. We love drinking our coffee in the morning, and wondering who else might be drinking their coffee from our mugs and where they might be…

02/19/2019

Finally got around to glazing these vases 🤞

11/18/2018

A few more vases in the works 💥

08/31/2018

A larger version this go around 👍

08/31/2018

First time back on the wheel in well over a year 🙌

04/18/2015

BIG CHANGES AHEAD

We are so proud of what Kirkwood Clay has accomplished over the last several years! Our little business has changed our lives in so many ways, and there are a few more big changes on our horizon. Scott has been offered an amazing opportunity to pursue a new career that will allow him to combine his love of craft with his passion to help and educate others. Unfortunately, this means that Kirkwood Clay is closing for business as we sell our home, pack up our studio and move on to our next adventure. Though bittersweet, we must say “goodbye” for now. We are so grateful for all of the support that we’ve received over the years from near and far, and we can’t wait to see where our new path leads.

04/04/2015

Can't wait to deliver these mug boxes :)

04/04/2015

Progress.

04/04/2015

I'll be doing this about 50 times today - Repetitive work like this gives me some good time to think things through :)

04/03/2015

Working on a large batch of these forms today :)

04/03/2015

Adding a few of these stoneware lager "glasses" to the gallery today!

04/02/2015

from ・・・Happy ! Let's say with our photo contest. We'll regram some of our favorites.

04/01/2015

Unloading the kiln and putting some fresh pieces out in the gallery this afternoon :)

03/31/2015

Worked on a nice batch of white stoneware planters for today and I'll make the brown stoneware batch tomorrow. They'll be sun dried, fired and finished over the next couples of days before being sent out to California :)

03/30/2015

Watch. This. Now.

2014 Mr.Romance

03/29/2015

Lidded teacups :)

03/29/2015

Happy Sunday!

03/29/2015

Large cruet finished with an rosewood stopper :)

03/29/2015

White stoneware finished with clear gloss glaze and topped with a dogwood stopper

03/28/2015

White stoneware olive oil cruet by topped with a hand-turned walnut stopper by .

03/28/2015

New designs - White stoneware olive oil cruets topped with hand-turned bottle stoppers made by Phillip Fuentes. I love collaborating with other artists and have been learning so much from observing Phillip's studio practice over the last few months. Which form is your favorite?

03/28/2015

And here's the winner of today's batch of pieces! White stoneware mug with thumbprint accent finished with clear / cascading jade glaze. This one will be on its way to a great customer on Monday morning :)

03/28/2015

We had a bunch of fun today testing out the functionality of our new eco-friendly packaging! We're planning to phase out the use of bubble wrap and packing peanuts by utilizing natural wood curls-the natural byproduct of the wood turning process. has been saving curls for us for a while now and we have a few other great resources. Once dried, the curls make the perfect eco-friendly cushioning/void fill for shipping fragile pottery. We'll keep testing out shipping scenarios, but this solution looks promising.

03/27/2015

Hey North Carolina! I'll be busy working in the studio this weekend, but a bunch of Kirkwood Clay's newest pieces will be on display and for sale at The Southern Ideal Home Show at the Greensboro Coliseum this weekend. Be sure to visit the show and check out our work in person if you're in or around Greensboro :)

03/27/2015

Time to turn all of this Highwater Clay from Asheville, NC into a few hundred mugs :)

03/27/2015

Stoneware Beer Stein Close Up.

03/26/2015

A good ending to a good day in the studio :)

03/26/2015

Speckled Brown Stoneware Goblets coming soon to our shop! (Link in bio)

03/26/2015

White stoneware wine goblets fresh out of the kiln for spring! Coming soon to our Etsy shop: www.kirkwoodclay.etsy.com

03/25/2015

Tonight's kiln opening! It looks like good results :)

03/25/2015

Packing up some new pieces for this weekend's Southern Ideal Home Show - Click the link in our bio for event details :)

Address

Greensboro, NC
27408

Website

http://www.kirkwoodclaypottery.com/

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Videos

I'll be doing this about 50 times today - Repetitive work like this gives me some good time to think things through :)

We had a bunch of fun today testing out the functionality of our new eco-friendly packaging! We're planning to phase out the use of bubble wrap and packing peanuts by utilizing natural wood curls-the natural byproduct of the wood turning process. @pfcabinetmaker has been saving curls for us for a while now and we have a few other great resources. Once dried, the curls make the perfect eco-friendly cushioning/void fill for shipping fragile pottery. We'll keep testing out shipping scenarios, but this solution looks promising.

The devil is in the detail :)

It's snowing pretty good again here in NC :)

Watch Scott make one of the woven stoneware berry baskets that will be in next month's issue of Our State Magazine! #handmade #pottery #greensboro #northcarolina #ourstatemagazine #205collaborative

Check out this automated Zen Garden that one of the other artists here at 205 Collaborative has made!

Trimming a large bowl!

Trimming the large serving bowl from this morning's videos :)

Here's the whole process of throwing a large serving bowl with 7.5 pounds of clay :) This piece will be trimmed after it dries and will end up 12 inches wide at the rim and 5 inches tall. #205Collaborative #handmade #Pottery #Greensboro #NorthCarolina

Finishing the large serving bowl!

Here we go again!

#glaze dipping on the bias... This batch will be golden green glazed and the raw stoneware that stays exposed will turn to a dark chocolate brown after being fired to cone 6.

Repeated this 50 times today - Now to put on all of the handles :) #205Collaborative #handmade #Pottery #Greensboro #NorthCarolina

Getting warmed up and ready to throw a set of mugs for a huge order... Now if I can only figure out how to make three mugs at the same time I'll be all set :)

Brushing on the second coat of glaze to finish up all of the platters that will be fired tomorrow #205Collaborative #handmade #Pottery #Greensboro #NorthCarolina