I work almost exclusively in porcelain.
While Stoneware is the backbone of most ceramic studios for good reason. It is stable, versatile, and endlessly expressive—capable of warmth, grit, softness, and weight. I’ve always liked it. I live with many stoneware pieces. Some of the best pots I’ve ever held are stoneware.
But, I LOVE porcelain.
Porcelain is a diva, demanding in a way that feels almost personal. It is sensitive at every stage—drying, trimming, firing. It will crack, slump, or warp if you are even slightly careless. It is expensive, temperamental, and rarely forgiving. Most studios avoid it for exactly these reasons.
And still, it is the material I cherish above all else.
Because when it works, porcelain is unlike anything else. She's Beyonce. It fires to a dense, white, vitrified surface that carries light differently from other clays. Thrown thin, it becomes slightly translucent. Fired, it moves closer to glass than stone. That transformation—mineral to structure to something almost luminous—is what holds my attention.
It is also unusually pure. Porcelain contains very few ingredients and no added fillers like ball clay. What you are working with is closer to a refined system than a blended body. There is nowhere for inconsistency to hide.
Plus, I have a strong lineage with it. Staffordshire, England, where my family name comes from, was a center of porcelain and ceramic development. I threw my first porcelain piece as a very young child and understood it immediately. Not as ease, but as recognition... my mom shurgged in shock and said it must be an inherited muscle memory, and from then on I was hooked.
At Selde, we use porcelain for dinnerware and tile because it supports what we are trying to build: objects that will last generations in beauty and durability. It is not the easiest material. It is the one that lasts.
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