Wilz Pottery - About the Artist

Wilz Pottery Denise Wilz P.O. Box 447 Green Lane, PA 18054 215-260-1133

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About the Artist

I began Wilz Pottery and creating redware in 2003. My inspiration for using red earthenware clay came about from an adult evening class taught by my friends Loretta and Ivan Belac, where I used my great-grandmother's tin cookie cutters to make ornaments. (I have since had replicas made so that I can use the originals for the big fat sugar cookies I make at Christmas time.) At the same time I began collecting books on Pennsylvania German folk art as I looked for ideas to decorate a wooden door in my kitchen.

Prior to 2003 I was employed in the corporate world as a computer programmer and analyst for almost 20 years. I graduated from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1982 with a degree in Studio Art. My husband, two sons and I live in the woods of eastern Pennsylvania, along with our two cats, one dog and the quail.

I love the deep rich color of the red clay. I am self-taught and continue to refine and expand my skills each day. I begin by working with a clay that is a dark red brown, and when fired, becomes a beautiful red. I like shiny things and have decided not to age my work. Each piece is created individually and will never be perfect, just like life.

My Work

My designs are inspired by Pennsylvania German folk art of all kinds, including pottery, fraktur and painted furniture. I use traditional techniques and tools to create my work - rolling pins , a disc cutter, slip cups, a coggle wheel to decorate the edges of the plates, molds for shaping the plates, and handcrafted tin cookie cutters. My work is fired in an electric kiln rather than the traditional wood-fired kiln, and I do not use the heavily leaded glazes of yesteryear.

Some of my favorite sgraffito designs are attributed to potter Conrad Mumbouer (1761-1845), of Haycock Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania; and I have had the opportunity to touch two of his pieces. I was delighted to see that my sgraffito tool marks are similar to his (as if we used the same tool) and he too liked to leave his scratch marks visible, and did not smooth them out either. Mr. Mumbouer used copper oxide, a gorgeous jewel-like green colorant, and manganese, a brown-black color, on his sgraffito plates to add to their beauty. I am still learning to be free with the daubs of copper oxide on my plates, the green color adds so much more life to each piece.

I create slipware pieces using slip cups made of contemporary materials; the slip designs are squiggles, straight lines and dots! Every now and again I try using my slip cup made from a clay cup with turkey quills as straws, but haven't been a successful as I would like with the tool. Any suggestions would be appreciated, so that I can emulate the slip designs that are wholly contained on the surface, not just drawn from side to side, as all mine are now.

My first love is sgraffito. I like it because I find it detail-oriented, as was programming, and it can be challenging. Part of the challenge is designing new work and making it compositionally pleasing. I also like each piece to have a nice smooth touchable surface and find I can accomplish that if I sgraffito the piece when it is in a leather-hard state - not too wet and not too dry.

I hand-model whistles in the shape of birds too. Early pieces have thin wings and long tails with no decoration, and my current whistles are decorated with slip to delineate the wings and the tails are much shorter. I believe it's time to make whistles again as I haven't made any for awhile. Ah, something else to think about and work on.......

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