“I love the purity of porcelain, its smoothness and its ability to retain color,” says Ursula Fries-Herfort. To preserve the pale turquoise color reminiscent of celadon glazes (shown in this sugar and creamer set), Fries-Herfort uses transparent glazes that play off the porcelain’s ability to brighten the glaze colors. Fries-Herfort brings accents to her work using mishima—the process of using a colored slip as an inlay. This set is decorated with white slip, colored slip and underglazes.

Each scene on Steve Cunliffe’s “Space Cups” is created using a technique called sgraffito. Cunliffe, who works from his Henniker studio, starts by painting a black oxide. Once it’s dry, he scratches through the black layer to reveal the white clay underneath. After the sgraffito is finished, the area is waxed and then the rest of the cup is glazed and fired.

As part of a Native American wedding ceremony, the groom’s parents make a wedding vase. The vase is filled with holy water and given to the bride, who drinks from one side of the vase. The groom then drinks from the other side—uniting the couple. When tourist travel to the Southwest became common in the early 1900s, Indian wedding vases were brought to other parts of the country, says Michael Hingston of Michael Hingston Antiques in Etna. This vase measures 6¼-inches tall and was made by the Hampshire Pottery (1904–1923), also known as J.S. Taft & Co., in Keene circa 1910. “The vase is glazed in a matte green color common to Hampshire Pottery,” Hingston says, “which was typical for pottery such as this produced during the Arts & Crafts period.”

“Nature has a strong influence on my work,” Teresa Taylor of Salty Dog Pottery in Barnstead says, “especially the forms and textures.” For this bowl, Taylor used a sgrafitto hand-carving technique on the black rim to bring a bold, energetic and unique surface. Choosing soft sea green for the color, Taylor glazed the bowl with colored porcelain clay slips and fired it in a salt kiln to 2300ºF. The result is a distinctive, functional and fanciful work that is food safe, dishwasher safe and ovenproof.

Cheryl Kumiski, of Cheryl Kumiski Glass Studio in New Durham, created this bowl by placing hundreds of tiny pieces of dichroic glass with tweezers. The process was repeated in each of the three layers of dichroic glass, which are separated by multiple layers of clear glass. The piece was then kiln-fired four times.

Penelope Wurr, of Penelope Wurr Glass in Putney, Vermont, describes her work as “gritty city meets rural Vermont. Mixing the contemporary with the traditional is part of my eclectic English temperament.” Her mix of styles may have been cemented by her time spent with her grandmother while her architect mother worked. “For three years, I spent two mornings a week in a large Tudor room that smelled of rose blossom and polish, making Japanese flower arrangements with a crew of elderly and devoted teachers,” Wurr says. “My love of nature and flowers has influenced my desire to produce great vases in which to place them.”

The Turtle Platter—designed and made by Iris Minc of Purple Sage Pottery in Merrimac, Massachusetts—features seven pairs of primitive, facing turtles in 3D. With a childlike playfulness, each turtle is a little different. The nineteen-inch, stoneware platter is both beautiful and functional, and makes a stunning centerpiece or wall hanging.

After throwing this lamp on the potter’s wheel, Bruce Murray of Bradford, Vermont, then “slipped” the eighteen-inch-tall piece with liquid clay containing colorants, fired once, and then glazed and fired again. In each process, Murray uses a cross-pouring technique to add a subtle decorative highlight. The end result is part of an eight-hundred-year-old tradition that Murray learned from world-renowned Bauhaus potter Marguerite Wildenhain. The lampshade is by Ken Blaisdell of Lampscapes in White River Junction, Vermont.

From Gigi Laberge’s View from My Walk series, this fused glass and enamel framed piece is titled Best Time of Day and is modeled after the view from Henniker, looking toward Pat’s Peak from Colby Hill. “With this work,” Laberge says, “I tried to capture that glimpse of a moment, the time of happiness and contentment, and the quiet moments of hope felt when out for a walk on a glorious New England afternoon.”

Drawing from ideas of architecture and sculpture, Jameson Davis Copp’s bowl began with a slump mold of clay. He then used slabs of stoneware clay to build the structure. On the wheel, Copp altered the slabs by adding and subtracting clay elements. He finished with a cone 6 oxidation glaze that brings a bronze patina look. “The bowl’s emphasis on asymmetry creates a certain quality of movement in the piece,” Copp says, “treating the bowl more like a sculpture than just a functional form.”