Made California Clay

For a new collection of tile, Heath Ceramics turned to a fellow Golden State clay worker: the artist Stan Bitters.

- Lila Allen

In the Heath studio in Sausalito, California, a group of ceramicists wields an unusual arsenal of tools. Equipped with mallets, ball-peen hammers, and two-by-fours, the workers whack away at slabs of clay, laying a dense pattern of impressions on the soft, cool material.

Suffice it to say this is not a normal day at the office for the employees of Heath, whose pottery is known for its simple, unadorned aesthetic. The workshop, opened by Edith Heath in 1948, continues to produce the clean-lined dinnerware that first earned it acclaim and gave Heath a place at the table in homes across the U.S. (as well as in the collection of LACMA).

But today is for whacking. Whacking, then carving and splicing, because the clay workers are heads down in a collaboration with Stan Bitters, a ceramicist of a different breed—one who helped define an expressive, even carnal side of modern Californian clayware. Bitters’s monumental works, like his two-story fireplace at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs or installations at the Duncan Ceramics Center in Fresno, are raw and dramatic, revealing the maker’s hand in their grooves and edges. To create some of the textures in his pieces, Bitters has been known to strike the clay with wooden planks.