Secret Garden Pottery

My name is Annette Weaver and I am a ceramic artist.  I first found my hands, arms, and clothes covered with clay in 1965 while taking art classes at Southwest High in Kansas City Missouri. 

Over the years I have dabbled in oils, acrylics, watercolors, colored pencils, colored inks, woodcarving, knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, counted cross stich and crewel embroidery but clay has been my most enduring free time occupation.  In 2000 after 20 year of hard work I sold my interiroscape business to work clay full time.

My husband Jim built my studio in 2002 to house my old small kiln and my new large (14.2 cubic foot) kiln.  The actual clay work is done on the back patio and is a bit arduous in the cold or the heat but well worth the effort to me.  I work in the mid-range firing temperatures (2145 degrees) utilizing a cream white clay with a smooth porcelain texture.  I love to do ceramic pieces that are wall mounted as well as mosaics and other sculptural pieces. 

I also value functional ware - bowls, dishes, vases etc.  Incorporating texture as much in my functinal ware as in my more decorative pieces is one of my delights.  I hope that textured pieces, whether functional or decorative, would tempt the viewer not only visually but physically to touch and investigate the pottery.

In the past we have done small art fairs and craft sales but the pottery is getting too heavy for us old folks to lug around so we are working through the four locations listed on the Links page.   As always you can contact me with questions thorugh any of tthese locations or through this web site "Contact Us" or at 602-266-5913.   

About the pottery

We use, almost exclusively, cone 5 B-Mix clay at Secret Garden Pottery.  This clay has a smooth porcelain texture.  Because it fires to a cream color you get excellent glaze results when using translucent glazes.

Firing to cone 5 in an electric kiln you have a wider pallette of commercially mixed glaze colors with which to work.

We use many techniques for decorating the pottery.

• Majolica - the decorative application of coloring oxides and stains over an unfired glaze that fuses into the base glaze during firing.
• Application - clay that has been rolled very thin and cut into different shapes (leaves, flower petals) is applied to the sides of the pottery
• Lifting - lifting is an old technique where a tool resembling a small spoon is inserted into the clay and a small petal like projection is lifted up.
• Colored clays or engobes- are used to color the clay and to paint pictures or pieces of pottery.  Using the colored clays you can acheive a depth and variance of color not avaialbe when working with glazes alone.