Aby and her Great Dane Zahara
Every piece you see on this site or in person at a market is all hand thrown by Aby. Each piece is individually and lovingly crafted.
The same goes for the design work you see on each piece. While they all have a similar flavor, every design in individually crafted for that piece making it a unique piece of art.
Aby’s unique aesthetic came about over 18 years of experimentation. Having been fortunate to travel the world doing artist residencies and also moving around a lot it came to make less and less sense to use beautiful local clay all over the world and then cover it with glaze.
That is where Aby’s unique aesthetic was born. She started to expose more and more of the clay body to accentuate the medium that she is working with. After 18 years working in ceramics her knowledge and respect of the clay body goes deep. Her design work is a way of acknowledging and respecting this special medium.
Meet the Maker
Aby Henry is an artist, writer and potter that calls Portland, Oregon home. She lives there with a plethora of plants and an overabundance of books (if there is such a thing), her partner Tom, their great dane Zahara, their cat Knock, and a ridiculously large garden.
She has been an artist from a young age thanks to her amazing grandparents. She has been throwing and working with clay for 18 years.
About the Pottery
All work is thrown and trimmed by hand, by Aby, at her studio in SE Portland. Every piece is individually crafted - never slip cast. Every piece is a unique one-off creation, no two pieces are ever exactly the same! Aby works almost exclusively with porcelain. With 18 years in the field, Aby’s love and respect for clay goes deep. But her love and adoration of porcelain was solidified during an artist residency in China where she was able to go to the original kaolin mines that porcelain was mined out of in Jingdezhen.
Unless specifically noted all work in microwave and dishwasher (top rack please!) safe.
About Aby
Aby Henry is a graduate of the masters program at the Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC) with a Masters in Craft and an emphasis in ceramics. She also attended the University of Nevada, Reno, and received her BA in ceramics with a minor in art history. Aby moved to Portland to start her own art/farming business with her sister in 2008. She continued her work at Shop People in SE Portland starting in 2012. She was the head of the ceramics department from 2014-2016. Aby is on the board of the non-profit The Alliance of Oregon College of Art and Craft Alumni.
Sculpture and other art can be seen at www.abyhenry.com
Aby has attended:
Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts
Custom Orders:
Custom orders are currently OPEN. If you are interested in a custom order please send an email to abymhenry@gmail.com with details about what you are hoping for. Due to time constraints etc. not all requests can be taken, but I will do my best to accommodate! The average turn around is 4-6 weeks depending on the size of the request. Please note that larger custom orders include a non-refundable deposit of half the amount of the order up front. This covers time to create the item, clay, glaze, and firings. As I incur these costs either way, the deposit is non-refundable.
About the Clay:
All pieces that are a white clay body are porcelain. I use midrange porcelain and stoneware. What this means for you is that these pieces are extremely strong because they are fully vitrified (think fully hardened and mature!) which makes them very hardy. While all non-commercial pottery will technically last longer with hand washing - everything on this site is dishwasher safe (top rack please!) and can go in the microwave.
About the work
There are two kinds of ceramic work out there. Slip cast or hand thrown. Slip casting is where there is a mold of the shape. Liquid clay is put in and poured out and it gives you an identical copy of whatever the item is.
The other way is throwing on a wheel. Every piece created on a wheel is hand thrown. The quality of the work is purely indicated by the skill of the person throwing the object. Each piece even if they appear similar will have its own unique touch of the maker.
A good way to tell if something is hand thrown or slip cast is to flip it over! Slip cast items often have a seam that shows. They also typically have a smooth bottom. Hand thrown items will have what is called a “foot”. Aka the interior of the bottom has been trimmed away, often leaving behind a beautiful spiral that is indicative of the wheels rotation and the makers hand.
Thick and heavy doesn’t equate to strength, it simply equates to skill.