Hayley Reed

Happy Mother’s Day to my incredible mom!! You raised me with love, support, kindness, curiosity, creativity, and so much more! ❤️ Your strength, independence, and love for your friends and family continue to inspire me and provide a compass to follow as I grow and live my life.

Love you soooooo much mom!

Having a blast making mini pots and talking to folks about my work in Forsyth Park! I think these little vessels will soon be fridge magnets? 🤔

Weather permitting, I’ll be set up at the park again next Saturday 5/16 ☀️

Couldn’t have asked for a better day for my first set up in the park. The cool breeze, chirping birds, and curious passerby’s are lifting my spirits.

Like a lot of artists, I’ve always got a running to-do list, projects to try, forms to figure out, and ideas waiting their turn (often for months or years 🫣). The past few days I finally took on throwing larger forms. I started with a six-pound bowl, then eight, and worked my way up to a ten-pounder, with a few flops and failures along the way.

I’m proud of the physical strength it takes to throw bigger, and just as proud of the forms I was able to land. It feels really good to finally tackle one of the things that have been sitting on my phones to-do list for a while. ☺️

What is sitting on Your makers to-do list, and what is standing in the way? 🤔

The last pieces have gotten wiped down and sanded and when they’re dry tomorrow they’ll get a lovely coat of glaze and will be loaded into the kiln to embark on their fiery journey to melty shiny completion. Hooooray!

Clay is notoriously messy, and reclaiming clay especially so. Now that I’ve paused work in greenware and have moved on to glazing my final pieces for the Savannah Clay pottery tour, it’s also time to tackle my reclaim scrap and slop buckets.

Having a studio is wonderful and a spectacular gift, but it’s more than just making pots, glazing, and creative expression. It’s getting elbows deep in stinky clay reclaim slop to save as much material as possible, and so many more unseen upkeep tasks.

While reclaiming clay is stinky and takes time, I love knowing that I’m recovering so much usable material that can be transformed into future pots. There’s something poetic about my past failures, mistakes, and excess materials, being reconstituted into something that can be used for the possibility of future learning and successes. ♻️🥰

plate butt decoration. stencils applied with a layer of white slip on top. 2 more layers of slip to be applied as they dry 🖌️

still life of a potters studio 🎨

these babies are all in the kiln ready to be bisque fired tomorrow 🔥 sleep tight my sweet lil pots. drop a high five in the comments for a safe and successful firing! 🙌🏼