The West

Lisa Jones, Founder and CCO of Pigeon Toe Ceramics

Portland, Oregon

I got into ceramics as away to sort of turn off my brain and make something beautiful—and hopefully to find a hobby. But like everything else I do, I found a way to turn it into a more elaborate production. In this case, a business.

Here, I’m building a sconce. So, you start with cleaning the molds and deciding what color you’re going to cast in. When the clay goes into the molds, it’s a liquid. As the plaster in the mold absorbs the water in the clay, you create the shell of a ceramic piece.

After the shells have finished their 36 hours of firing in the kiln, they are moved to a room where we assemble the electrical components. With every piece we ship, we always say that we want our work to be what someone fights over when their relative dies. You laugh—but wouldn’t it be the most wonderful thing to know that something you designed was moving through multiple generations of a family?

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