Mara Harper
Founder · Wheel & teaching
Still the first one in on kiln days. Teaches most beginner series and believes every person has one great mug in them.
Our story
Three generations, one kiln
Kiln & Clay began with a used wheel in a garage and a stubborn belief that useful pots still matter. Eighteen years later, we’re still on Division Street — a little dustier, a lot more loved.
Mara Harper threw her first pot in a night class at Portland Community College in 1998. She came home covered in clay, grinning like she’d found a secret door. By 2007 she and her partner Eli had signed a lease on a narrow storefront on SE Division, hauled in a secondhand gas kiln, and hung a hand-painted sign: Kiln & Clay.
The early years were pure hustle — farmers markets at dawn, late nights glazing under a single shop light, and a rotating cast of neighbors who wandered in “just to look” and left with a mug. Slowly the shelves filled, the class list grew, and the studio stopped feeling like a gamble and started feeling like home.
Milestones
How we got here
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2007
Doors open on Division
First lease, first kiln load, first cracked batch of mugs (we still keep one on the office shelf as a reminder).
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2011
Classes become a cornerstone
What started as weekend demos turned into full beginner series. Half our regulars today first walked in as students.
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2016
Next generation on the wheel
Daughter June comes home from art school and never quite leaves — she now runs glaze chemistry and the shop floor.
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2020
Porch pickups & patience
We kept the kiln warm with take-home kits and porch pickups. The neighborhood kept us afloat; we haven’t forgotten.
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Today
Still handmade, still family
Same block, bigger kiln, same promise: pots made for real tables, and a studio door that’s easy to walk through.
The people
Who you’ll meet
Eli Harper
Co-founder · Handbuilding & kiln
Quiet hands, impeccable coils. Keeps the kiln schedules honest and the studio shelves from collapsing under greenware.
June Harper
Glaze lead · Shop
Grew up under the wedging table. Now mixes every house glaze and curates what’s on the floor. Ask her about iron speckles.
How we work
Small batches, honest materials
We throw and handbuild in-house, bisque in our electric, and glaze-fire in a gas kiln Eli rebuilt twice. Clays come from regional suppliers; glazes are mixed from raw materials in five-gallon buckets labeled in Mara’s handwriting.
We don’t outsource production. When a glaze run sings, you’ll see a short run of it on the shelves. When it doesn’t, it becomes a lesson — and sometimes a very interesting second.
See current work“The studio is less a business plan and more a long conversation with clay — and with whoever walks through the door next.”
Come be part of the next chapter
Take a class, pick up a bowl, or just lean on the counter and watch a demo. We’re glad you’re here.