Alison Watson Pottery

Well that was amazing! Northern Lights right in my Utah neighborhood last night!

Late one night several years ago, I happened to be outside at just the right time to see very bright and distinct Northern Lights. It wasn’t forecast to my knowledge and I had no idea that it was even a possibility where I lived, so I was completely blown away. The brilliant pinks, greens and bright colors danced across the sky so beautifully and I felt so much awe that it has inspired my work ever since. Literally. I love for my glazes to run in such a way that I am reminded of the beautiful sky and its variations all those years ago.

As I have spent the last several months dedicating huge amounts of time, glaze testing, materials and messing around with firing schedules to get my pink glaze to match my vision, seeing this pink sky really felt like a gift.

Did you get a chance to catch them where you are?

It’s been harvest season around here!

Having a few of these huge bowls around from my seconds pile comes in especially handy when my small backyard orchard is ready for picking.

Later today I’ll be dropping off a new batch of bowls that I love to my friends at where some will stay in the stores and others will make it to the website. Busy day in the studio as always!

Some bowls drying this evening, soaking up the last sun of the day. Tomorrow they’ll be in the first of two firings and by next week these particular bowls and friends will be on the shelves !

On another note, thanks for sticking around through my social media off time! It’s been quite the Summer so far, and super busy on the mom front. All the while I’ve been working long, hard triple overtime hours when I’m in town. Work hard play hard!

I’m planning on leaning harder into getting more posts on here- because I couldn’t love you more for being here and I don’t want to be lame. Plus, there are some great stories and whys behind this business. As always, bowls are on the way and I am so glad that you’re here regardless of if you buy any of my work or not!!

Happy Monday friends!!!

I’m feeling recharged from a great weekend that had the perfect combination of work and play. Unless I am out of town, I work in clay every single day. It was a fantastic work weekend getting new bowls made, trimmed, glazed, fired, and somehow coercing my husband into doing some important maintenance work on one of my kilns that ended up taking 5 hours.

I also got to spend some fabulous hours having a family ski/snowboard afternoon, playing pickleball, attending church, connecting with friends, eating good food and even squeezing in a little bit of relaxing. Balance is a good thing! What made your weekend happy?

Fun fact: I have to make my bowls SUPER big because they shrink about 12% during the drying and firing process.

For reference this is a normal size chair and stool, and my big old foot is an above average size 10!

This morning was all about glazing, getting kilns loaded and packing up finished bowls to head to the Food Nanny store tomorrow. But then I was able to sit down at my potters wheel and get a few more of these big ones made before my after school mom duties began! Thanks for being here friends ❤️.

Guess what happened today?!? My 50th batch of bowls made it safe and sound in all the snow up to the fabulous friends today! 50!!! I’m so beyond thankful to all of the people involved, from my family and my assistant Traci and my clay supplier who keeps me stocked, to Lindsey and the whole amazing team who get them beautifully packed and shipped all over, to Liz and Lizi themselves for giving me this opportunity, to you gorgeous souls who buy my work or just encourage me here!

Now it’s on to batch number 51, lots of which are already made and in the kiln now firing away 🔥. Coming next Thursday (and Friday mornings at 10am MST to the website).

Also, I need to up my photo game but here’s a nice honest glimpse into how they get from one place to another- stacks of these nested with love and clean baby blankets (the best bowl packing reusable material out of the many things that I’ve tried)!

Traci is the best studio assistant! Here she is sanding the feet on some bowls as we get them ready to go to their new homes.

Today is also delivery day to team!! There should be fresh new bowls on the store shelves in the next few hours and on the website on Friday morning 10am MST.

I’m still on a high from yesterday! My dear friend Eun, my dog Yukon and I went on the most gorgeous hike. Just look at these leaves 🍁!!

It was really the perfect work day. Starting at around 6:15 am, I got some good time in the studio working while it was still dark. I made a hot breakfast for my boys and got them off to school and then we hit the road/trail for our hike! I was back in the studio by 11am for some focused work time. And after my kids got home it was all about jumping back and forth between the mom job and pottery job until calling it a night by loading and turning on the kiln.

It reminded me of the importance of taking time to do the non pottery things that I love, and I end up being just as productive having taken the time for it.

Today it’s another busy day and I’m trying to show a glimpse in my stories. Have a great day and try to carve out some time to do something that feeds your soul!

🍁

Today in the studio!

Because I work in my garage with the doors wide open, I sometimes get visitors! My neighbor buddies dropped by and helped me paint a big circle with water on my wheel that I use as a target to throw my lump of clay on to. They’re so cute!!!

Then a few minutes later a less welcome visitor was a crazy bluebird who flew right in over my head and was flying around and squawking at me. I of course freaked out and had to take cover outside until it flew back out. So there are good visitors and bad visitors, but it’s always entertaining! I love my job ❤️

📸: the lovely and talented

I just now dropped off a big (for me) batch of bowls at the Food Nanny store! I’m writing this in the parking lot and it’s a batch that I’m pretty proud of because they are the same high quality AND more quantity. I’ll post some pics in my stories when I have a minute.

And we’re sadly almost to the end of swimming outside season. A good swim in a mountain lake, especially with my family, is food for my soul! But on the plus side with summer adventures winding down it’s now triple overtime pottery season, so the batches like todays should have more bowls in them each week. If you miss this one don’t worry! I’m picking up more clay on my way home and getting right on the wheel for a couple hours. As always, thanks for being here ❤️!!

A fresh batch of bowls made it safe and sound to and some will be online Friday at 10am MST!

And if you miss out on this batch, don’t worry because this should be a weekly thing for the most part. My goal is to get one to each of you that wants one!

The dog days of Summer!

Sorry it’s been a minute. I’m still making (and trimming) bowls though! Isn’t Yukon such a cute and helpful studio buddy?

Friends, I have so much catching up to tell you about that it’s crazy! Any parent in May can relate with how busy things get at the end of the school year. I’ve still been hard at work on bowls this whole time! Just not so good at posting about it.

For now though, I just wanted to answer a question that someone asked me about bowl capacity.

I recently hosted a lunch for a whole bunch of my daughters high school friends, who are mostly hungry track athletes. The large bowl held a giant salad using 3 heads of lettuce with room to spare, and in the medium bowl I had about two loaves of garlic bread cut in pieces. Not the most scientific answer but it’s practical!

Also- another small batch of bowls hit the shelves at the Food Nanny store today and they said the nicest things about them in their stories that made my day. I love working with the amazing people ❤️

💚 Green has been my favorite color since I could talk and declare a favorite, I just love it.

I’m happy to have a green glaze as part of the permanent line up now!

📸 Photo by my lovely new friend and bowl owner .homestead

Here’s a fun story, at least for me!

Yesterday after getting a few hours of pottery done and my kids off to school, I met up with 2 of my ski instructor friends to get in a cross country ski session.

One of them brought a friend I had never met. After a fabulous hour of gorgeous friend and nature time, I said that I needed to get back down to get back to work. This new friend said “Oh- what do you do?”. I told her I’m a potter (which oddly still feels a little weird to say out loud) and after a few more questions told her that I make all sorts of work but that I mostly make huge bowls these days. She asked me where I sell them and almost finished my sentence when I said !

Turns out, she’s a Food Nanny fan and she recently bought a few of my bowls for herself and for her daughters and that hers was sitting on her kitchen table at that very moment. Small world! (Swipe to see it in her kitchen). I love seeing pics of them being used and loved in all sorts of homes, and if you don’t have yours yet- I’m working on it, pinky promise!

Today is , and I feel so lucky to work with so many extraordinary women ❤️!

These two came into my life about a year ago, and they have been so supportive and warm and patient with me while I spent months trying to create the ultimate giant sourdough bowl. It took a lot of trial and error and extensive testing and they were there for it. They are perfect examples to me of being the ultimate cheerleaders for others.

To all of you women (and men!) out there, you’re amazing and beautiful and I’m so glad that you’re here! Now I’m gonna get back to my potters wheel...

Hi friends!! I interrupt my way too lengthy pause in social media activity to say that I just dropped off a fresh batch of bowls store in SLC. If you want one, run on over because a few of them sold in the few minutes that I was there! And for you out of state friends, I promise that I’m working hard on yours as well!

Also, as a lover of books you should check this one out. It’s full of gorgeous photos and recipes!

I hope you all had the best Thanksgiving weekend 🍁!!

Words are inadequate to describe how grateful I am for each of you who have supported my pottery business in any way. You have made my dreams and those of my family come true and I try to pour that love and gratitude back into what I am blessed to make for you.

I’m also grateful for these amazing kids, a supportive husband, and a weekend filled with so many of my favorite things (feasts for body and soul, rock climbing, ice skating, cousin sleepovers, family time, and making more huge mixing bowls each day).

A thousand times, thank you! ❤️

🎄The holiday handmade market season officially begins today for me, with the opening !

I prepare all year for this few weeks leading up to Christmas. I even glazed some of these ornaments in my car during Spring track and field season between events for my daughter, because it’s one of the only things I can do with my job that’s somewhat portable. Now I’m so glad that I did!

I wasn’t supposed to start any markets for a few more weeks, but they had another maker drop out last minute and asked me if I could jump in 2 days ago. So I don’t have everything 100% done yet that I like to have at a market, but as usual I’m going to be adding in pieces as I finish them.

#801

Kiln after pics! Also, happy two days after Halloween 🎃😂!!

I had exactly enough time on Monday between the elementary school costume parade and my Junior High carpool pick up to unload this kiln load🔥! It went mostly well and I have some new favorites in the bunch.

Also shown are a few Halloween pics for fun! I got zero photos of me in costume this year, but my kids look great (2 of 4 kids shown: FBI agent and Princess Buttercup). And the traditional spider pizza that I make every year.

Tell me about you! What’s the candy that you are most likely to sneak from your kids’ candy stash?

These bowls that I loaded the other day are being fired right now in this large gas kiln🔥!! Fingers crossed that they turn out beautifully because this load represents a whooooole lot of hours of work🤞.

These are all the smaller of the two sizes that I’m currently making, which a year ago used to be about the biggest size that I used to make! So if all goes according to plan, they should be in the Food Nanny store sometime within the week.

And a note for potters or whoever is interested: this isn’t my kiln. I’m renting it from my supplier to catch up because I can’t fit very many at once in my garage kiln. This was the first time that I’ve ever transported work that isn’t finished. I glazed at my house, carefully nested sets of 5 with packing paper in between each piece and hoped that they would make the trip okay. I forgot to pack glaze to patch up inevitable dings from transport. There were about 8 that didn’t make the cut because some glaze got rubbed off, so I brought them back to my studio, patched them up and some are being fired right now in my kiln. Yay for two firings at once!! It’s always a learning experience doing something new.

Bowls on top of bowls, literally! These are dry and some of them made it into my kiln last night nested in some of the XL bowls 🔥

Also, yesterday I got a new P.R. (personal record) for glazing. I set up in my driveway and glazed 50 of the medium sized bowls! I was a mess and so was my driveway but one of the many advantages of working outside is that I can hose it off at the end of the day. Those will be getting glaze fired over the next little bit and making their way to the Food Nanny store and website soon!

After months of hard work, I’m excited to show you a glimpse of one of the completed giant bowls that I have been working on for the Food Nanny!! My photo skills here aren’t the best, but these bowls are in a few fun reels and stories lately that show them much better. It makes my potter heart ❤️ happy to see them fulfilling their purpose being used and loved and helping bring delicious food to families all over!

I’m working on a big batch (waiting for my massive amounts of glaze materials to arrive) so we can really launch them, but in the meantime I have been able to release a few dozen. I’ll give more details in later posts, really I just wanted to show it to you 🙂.

I’m also pleased that my pear tree that I planted several years ago gave off loads of delicious pears this season! I tossed a few of them in this bowl to show the scale and because I think they’re pretty. As always thanks for being here! ❤️

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier not because the nature of the thing has changed but because our ability to do it has increased” -RW Emerson

I love that quote on the wall.

For the last 2.5 weeks I’ve been doing two jobs at once. Substitute teaching ceramics for a friend at my local high school, and still working hard on my bowls using them as demos on how to center and pull walls. I’m a visual learner, and I think I teach better by showing the how while I explain it. And it’s a fun time working alongside others! It meant a lot of early mornings, late nights and working through the weekends to keep up with my nearly daily firing schedule. I had fun fielding all the questions about clay and all sorts of other completely unrelated topics like “what is your favorite mythical creature?”. Kids are the best! And so are the teachers who do this full time!

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New glaze ❤️!

In my quest to find the perfect glazes to use on the food nanny bowls, I’ve done a WHOLE lot of glaze testing over the past few months. This is one of my favorites of the bunch and will be added to my permanent lineup! It’s hard to tell from photos, but to me it’s the perfect combo of blue/green/gray and I ❤️ it!!

Also, today is the last day ! I’m excited to be back after a couple months off from most markets, and my studio is excited to be gaining back some shelf space! If you head over, take note that the venue has changed. And as always, thanks for being here!——————————————————————————————————————————————————————-