Goertzen Pottery

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Goertzen Pottery Local pottery studio at the historic Old Bag Factory POTTERS PRODUCING ON-SITE. Large showroom and gallery, production pottery and museum-quality works.

We produce kitchenware, decorative vase and flower pieces, and one-of-a-kind works.

And we are off. Wood firing for the next couple of days. Really happy and proud of Norah Ruth for basically running this...
03/09/2026

And we are off. Wood firing for the next couple of days. Really happy and proud of Norah Ruth for basically running this whole firing. It has been better than I could have done.

This will be turned into glaze over the next 50 hrs.
02/09/2026

This will be turned into glaze over the next 50 hrs.

15/07/2026

Pot 10 of 60.

I went fishing, shopped for my birthday party, and smoked some salmon and bacon today. It was a good day.
15/07/2026

I went fishing, shopped for my birthday party, and smoked some salmon and bacon today. It was a good day.

I am trying out a new shape of mug for me. The “barrel” shape is sort of a standard amongst many potters. Each putting o...
12/07/2026

I am trying out a new shape of mug for me. The “barrel” shape is sort of a standard amongst many potters. Each putting on their own flare to the form. I am liking what I am doing with the body of these mugs but am a little undecided on what handle goes best with the form. Do you have any opinions on which of these two handles works better?

Pot 9 of 60.

10/07/2026

Pot 8 of 60.

09/07/2026

A few small 4 ounce mugs for today. They are fun to make because I do not do mugs this small scale very often. At first I was trying to get them small enough for espresso drinkers but they were still too big. I didn’t know how to make a handle that looked right at that scale. They all looked way bulky or way fragile. Still working on it but at double espresso level I think my handles work. Even the one finger one that I rarely do.

This is pot 7 of my 60 pot series celebrating my 60 years on earth.

08/07/2026

Post 6 of 60 in my series of discussing 60 pots that I like.

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07/07/2026

From the beginning of my career I really liked making bowls. The shape variation seems endless and refining any of those shapes is rewarding when they come off how you planned. But sometimes things don’t go to plan and it ends up even better than I imagined. This bowl was fired twice. After the first firing the glaze had a few small glaze bubbles that made it look bad and unsafe to use. So I sprayed it with a little bit of water and then shook on a mixture of soda ash and wood ash. Not a great amount but just enough to make a light powder. If some areas were just a bit thick so be it. When this bowl went through the second firing the soda mix helped the original glaze flow and change color in some areas. The glaze bubbles melted out and now it looks great. The back side developed some black spotting in the rust red glaze but I think that is just what happens to the glaze when it gets fired more than once.

This is post 5/60 in my 60 pot series.

This is the year of my 60th birthday, and I’m attempting to post 60 pots that I love over 60 days. This is pot #4 of 60...
05/07/2026

This is the year of my 60th birthday, and I’m attempting to post 60 pots that I love over 60 days. This is pot #4 of 60, and it’s a story of beauty out of tragedy.

This pot is woodfired, which means it was part of a kiln load fired with only wood, with stoking happening about every 15 minutes over 2-3 days. This firing got way too hot—well over 2,400 degrees—and there was a lot of what we potters call “carnage”—pots fusing onto the shelves and fused to each other, shelves falling into the ash. It was, as you might imagine, gut-wrenching to peer into that kiln and see my art in a jumble in the ash. But out of that super-hot, super-damaged firing came this beauty, with features on the pot that I could not have planned.

When I look at the pot, I notice the bright blue “dragonfly eye” in the center, made entirely of wood ash at high temperatures. The neck has a delicate filigree pattern, with parts of super-thin, lace-like clay that are the result of the high temperature melting the shells and turning them into a high heat acid. The triangle of indentations are from where the pot sat on the wadding and seashells. Usually, you don’t want the wadding to show through, but in this case, the temperatures were so high that the shells didn’t create their usual clean mark. That’s okay with me. Those deep indentations tell the story.

Pottery has taught me so much about life. One of my wife’s favorite quotes is from the poet Charles Bukowski: “What matters most is how you walk through the fire.” This pot walked through fire and came out a treasure.

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Opening Hours

Monday 09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00
Friday 09:00 - 17:00
Saturday 09:00 - 17:00

Telephone

+15745341162

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