River Rat Pottery
Clay
We are a husband and wife team who love living history and sharing our passion for traditional American crafts. We create redware pottery—both utilitarian and decorative—inspired by early American redware, using traditional materials and processes. Often, our inspiration comes from early American folk art created in other mediums such as wood or leather. Fraktur has been a great reference for decorative ideas.
Our work is used and sold at many museums and historic sites. We hope to keep traditional crafts relevant by adapting our work so it appeals to a changing market. For example, we create traditional Pennsylvania German feather trees that are displayed in wheel-thrown redware bases with impressed decoration created using leatherworking tools.
Often, my wife brings her antique box looms to shows and weaves linen tape using both historical and contemporary colors. This handwoven tape is sometimes used to embellish our pottery.