-Bilbo Baggins

Hello Everyone and thank you for taking this journey with me!

Being able to spend my days making art has been a dream of mine for a very long time.
So far, this has been one of the most inspiring and richly rewarding endeavors of my life.

I have been fascinated with the art of ceramics for most for my life but for some reason I was never able to take the steps necessary to start the process. It was either the expense of the equipment, the lack of space, or just not believing that I possessed the skill to be successful.
That changed last September. Between the Covid lockdowns and having to take a month off of work due to health issues, I decided to buy an inexpensive wheel and some supplies, take a few in person ceramics classes, and start learning.

At first, not having a kiln and not feeling like anything I made was good enough, I spent weeks making wonky bowls and destroying them, re-wedging the clay, and starting again. I found that I needed more structure, some inspiration to finish my projects..... Enter my wedding
With our wedding on the horizon and a strong desire to have a wedding where we gave gifts to the community that has loved and supported us rather than received gifts from them, I decided that I was going to make a small mead cup for everyone that was attending, around 75 people.
I ended up making about 120 mead cups. They were of various skill levels, but they were all made to look as close to each other as I could get to keep them the same shape and size. Then I made coffee mugs for every person in our wedding party in order to try something different as well as learn to put handles on my work.

For me, this was a great success. Learning to repeat a simple shape over and over gave me confidence on the wheel and allowed me to master the basics and start learning more advanced techniques. The next thing I needed to do is firing, then glazing. I luckily had a friend with a kiln so I was able to do my first bisque firing, another success! I then took a fairly reliable glaze, and did a couple of glaze firings and had more success!
So then the wedding, and the honeymoon where I got to visit studios in Cornwall and Northern Scotland and home and back to the studio with more confidence and a better skillset.

Northshore Pottery, Mill of Forse, Caithness, Scotland. Artist: Jenny Mackenzie Ross

My next time in the studio I worked on some new shapes and products, tried out some new glazes, and in the middle of it, found a good used kiln (Skutt 1027) for a very good price, bought it, and named it Trogdor the Burninator.
Trogdor had been a blessing, a solid, reliable beast that fired my next batch of work perfectly.

Next came vending.... My first event that I vended at was Hexenfest, a small Pagan arts and music festival in Northern California. Hexenfest was a wonderful event, very small but great people. I ended up having a great time there, got lots of helpful feedback on my work, and sold about half of what I brought. I can't really describe how much of a confidence boost that was for me and I want to thank everyone that came by to admire and talk about my work.

So now here we are with a website, which I am pretty proud of and has already had some sales (once again I can't express how much I appreciate your support at this early stage in my career. I have big plans for extraordinary projects and having the support and encouragement now really gives me heart to keep going) For me this is not only a place to sell my work, but a place to share my adventures on this endeavor, so stay tuned on this blog for more updates as they happen.

Currently I'm back in the studio working on a combination of coffee mugs and larges vases and bowls to use in some raku and pit firings. My goals are to make as make mugs as I can and start to add some of Morpheus's artwork on it for some collaborative pieces, as well as build up a number of art pieces in order to do a number of raku firings over the winter as well as doing at least one primitive, all night, pit firing.

All of my work and firing is going to be done in a ritual manner, making offerings and prayers as the work progresses. As I get better I will start to incorporate blessed soil and water from sacred sites into the process as well as adding written prayers, sacred plants, and magical items into certain pieces during the firing process. My goal is to make works of art that are usable, beautiful, and hum with the power of the Otherworld.
Thank you for sharing this journey with me.

-Brennos

“I think i’m quite ready for another adventure”

Trials and Tribulations (kiln firing between atmospheric rivers)