Lara O’Keefe has a “clay personality” or so she was told early on in her career. To be more specific Lara is earthy, warm, and has a rich common sense about her. When speaking to what excites her, she says it is extremely satisfying to look up and see racks full of pots at the end of a day of throwing. “The first few – you never get it right. Like anything in life, you have to do it a thousand times, ten thousand times, to make something look effortless.”
O’Keefe Pottery came into it’s own in 2008 after Lara and her husband (with a little help from their friends) built her outdoor kiln. It took her a year. “We started just after my first daughter was born. I remember Fed Ex delivery guys wondering if I was building a boat.” The kiln looks just like an upended boat and is as tall as she is at its apex. An Anagama kiln, it employs massive amounts of wood to get it to temperature. It’s the old way of firing. “I like old things. I live in an old house, the structure of my kiln uses ancient technology, and I love traditional forms.” Perhaps Lara’s fortuitous apprenticeships with master North Carolina potters such as Rob and Beth Mangum, Pam and Vernon Owens, and Mark Hewitt planted the seeds for her traditional way of making things. Or perhaps it was magic and destiny that brought Lara back home to Chatham County to raise a family and make her very well crafted pots.
Whatever it is, Chatham County and Lara’s work is inexorably intertwined. In addition to crocks and jars with lids, Lara makes cups, bowls, plates, and platters. She uses traditional salt glazes. And her ash glazes are made directly from Chatham County trees. Lara regularly walks into the woods behind her home to dig up Chatham County red clay. When mixed with water, this clay makes red slip used to layer textures and create sgraffito – a form of decoration made by scratching through a surface to reveal a lower layer.
See more of Lara’s pottery on her Chatham Artists Guild gallery page.
