Many of the projects that we make are meta. They are not made as standalone things but are about or in service of making itself. This is one such project: a bench for making pottery.

Lacking a real ceramics studio, and with an irrepressible impatience to get started, I began making pottery in the Spring of 2024 in a shed that at one point years ago had been my makeshift wood shop.

I bought a pottery wheel, and repurposed an old bench I had made a decade ago from 2x12 construction lumber. After a few weeks of using that old bench, I realized that a more ergonomic setup might be a bit kinder to my body. So I asked Asa to make a nice bench.

I’ve only been in a small number of pottery studios, so what I’m about to say is pure conjecture, but Asa may have made the world’s nicest pottery bench for wheel throwing. The wood we used is sapele, and we got spectacularly lucky given that one of our sapele boards was incredibly figured. It happens sometimes when you’re buying rough hardwood: you don’t even know what you’ve got until you get it back to the shop and start milling it. This was a gorgeous bit of luck.

The finished piece, inspired again by Japanese design, is wonderful to look at, and incredibly comfortable to sit on for hours at a time. It’s been a welcome upgrade to the ceramics studio.