meet ZAHAVA

About
Zahava took her first pottery class at RISD as a kid, studied ceramics at Guilford College, and has been part of clay communities on the East and West Coast. She currently lives in Western Massachusetts. She makes pottery simply because she loves to.

Zahava is also passionate about her work serving kids as a speech and language therapist. She dreams about merging the two passions someday and providing therapeutic services to children through clay.

Artist Statement
Hi, I’m Zahava. I make functional art out of clay. I started making pottery as a child and have been captivated by it ever since.

Form was my original focus, but then I stumbled onto sgraffito. Sgraffito is the process of carving through an outer layer of color to reveal a layer of a different color underneath. It has opened a whole new world for me.

My designs are inspired by nature, but I allow my imagination to take over when carving. All of it is spontaneous and free hand.  Each piece is one of a kind.
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My work is wheel thrown, then trimmed, then painted with black underglaze, then carved, then bisque fired. Once bisque fired, I hand-paint layers of colored glaze onto the uncarved surfaces and a clear matte glaze over the illustrated surfaces. Then they are fired again for a final time.

I am most comfortable in my own skin when I am working with clay, but beyond that, I vibrate on a different frequency. Making pots lights me up from the inside. My hope is that every piece brings some of that light into the lives of those who bring one home.