Farm Shop Practice

Handmade here by Kitt Barkley Gauthier

The studio sits on land in Sonoma County that was once a farm, growing pears in heavy, high-quality crops in the region's warm, dry climate. Among the property's old books was one titled Farm Shop Practice, published in the 1930s as a guide to running an effective farm — the kind of book that trusted readers to learn a skill by practicing it, rather than leaning on an instructor. The name felt right for a maker's ongoing relationship with clay, a material that's always teaching its own lessons about what's possible and what isn't.

Family summers on the East Coast have also produced work in Tiverton, Rhode Island.