About Us

My Homestead, My Pottery and Me

As it turns out, Oklahoma, this town, this road, my homestead and the people who
occupied it before me have been a great inspiration to me and my pottery. My designs,
my methods, my commitment to the land, have all derived from the history and ghost
of this place. To better understand my pottery, let me give you the history, and the
inspiration behind it.

My Homestead - The Mayers
One of the settlers eager to stake a claim was Jake (Jakie)
M. Mayer. Jakie came to the United States from Latvia as a
young lad. He settled in Kansas, and in 1888 married Hattie
who had come from Latvia to join him. Once married they
moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma. At the time of the opening
here, Jakie made the run and staked a claim just 1 mile west
of Chandler, what is now my homestead. Two weeks later
Jakie returned to Guthrie for his wife. Bringing just 11 baby
fruit trees with her, she explained to her husband: "If we
raise babies, we have to raise fruit." Rude tents made by
throwing blankets over the scrub oaks, was their first
shelter. Later a little log cabin became their home. This is
where all three children were born. Anna, Rosa and Sylvia.

From those first 11 fruit trees, the Mayer's soon became
one of the largest fruit growers in this part of the country.
Many a car-load of fruit was shipped from the Mayer farm to
the eastern markets. Later they added a few oil wells to
their property and I believe 3 rental houses. In 1925 they
built the large 2 story brick house that is the only remaining
building on the homestead today. Jakie and Hattie lived in
the big house until their deaths in 1935 and 194?. A couple

years after the land run the Mayer's donated an acre of land for the first school house in this area,
called Pleasant Hill. Anna was a teacher in this school. Unfortunately I have not been able to find a
picture of Jakie himself but above are photos of his family.

This is a post card that I found in a file in the museum. It is my home at the time the Mayer's owned it. I
hope you can read the poem, if not, click here.

personality, you can see why I fit so nicely into my new environment. I feel like I could be an
off-spring of Jakie and Hattie Mayer. We have heard that Jakie wanted to be buried on this
property (he wasn't, but we did find a blank headstone in our field), and I can understand why. He
put his blood and guts into this place and I have every intention of doing the same.

My Clay Experience

My experience with clay started in 1989 when I lived in Tennessee and had a job as a Supervisor
for The Walker Doll Co. Vicki Walker, the doll artist and owner, created collectible porcelain dolls
and sold them all over the country in various gift shops. It was my responsibility to Supervise 20
employees in the production of these dolls from Vicki's original sculptures, through mold making,
pouring, cleaning, china painting, dressing, wig styling and shipping. This is where I learned the
whole process of creating porcelain pieces from beginning to end.

When I moved to California in 1991 I purchased a kiln and some molds and started doing
porcelain ornaments in my spare time. My full-time job was working in the computer graphics
industry, in downtown Los Angeles, with clients such as Disney, Warner Bros. and Mattel. Very
creative work, but very stressful. In 1999 I started taking college courses at night in the hopes of
getting a business degree. One of my courses was Ceramics. WOW! What a breath of fresh air.
This is where I learned how to use a potter's wheel, was introduced to stoneware, learned about
large gas kilns and buckets of glaze. I totally fell head over heals in love with clay and dreamed of
having my own studio one day.

In 2003 we moved here to Oklahoma. I really missed my college classes so I started searching
online for some courses in pottery. I found a wonderful website that had exactly what I was
looking for, a whole array of online classes in pottery. One of the classes I took was 'Digging Your
Own Clay'. Throughout this class I searched and searched locally for clay that I could dig and
bring back to my studio. I was itching to put what I was learning into practice. Everywhere I went,
my eagle eyes were constantly on the lookout for possible clay digging locations. I checked local
streams, eroded slopes, down many roadsides. Nothing. I was getting very discouraged and
thought I would be forever buying clay, until one day, shortly after my class ended, my husband
Guy was digging a reservoir on our property when he struck a big vein of red clay. Upon doing a
quick on-site test, this clay proved to be a keeper. You talk about being excited, I was so excited
I stayed outside and played with that clay all day long. And, well the rest is history in the making...
I like to think that the Mayer's would be proud

To learn more about my clay click here.

Chandler, Oklahoma

This is my home. It is located on Historic Route
66 in Chandler, Oklahoma. We moved here in
2003 from California to get away from the fast
paced corporate life of two careers and a child
raised by day care centers. Each of us came with
our own dreams and goals and mine was 'to
make a living working from home-preferably with
pottery'. When we moved here we knew nothing
of this town, or even Oklahoma for that matter.
All we knew is that we loved this home that we
found on the Internet.

About Me
I believe I was born in the wrong century. I have always felt a
connection with the pioneers of the 1800's, especially the
women, mostly because of their ability, and necessity, of
living off of the land. I am a gardener and love to collect
seeds and grow my own vegetables, I love making bread and
can't stand waste of any kind. I am into nutrition and believe
we are what we eat...everything has to be natural. I also love
animals, especially dogs (our alarm system). I have chickens
(fresh eggs) guineas (bug control), and a worm farm (kitchen
waste into compost). I would love to have a horse someday
but can't seem to justify one. I love nature and would prefer
to be outside than anywhere else. My favorite exercise is
walking, and lucky for me my husband has made a nice trail
all through our back property. I am also an entrepreneur who
loves to learn and is constantly reading something. With my

The Land Run

In September of 1891, President Harrison
issued a proclamation declaring the surplus
Indian lands, which had recently been
purchased from the Sac & Fox and other
Indian nations, to be open for settlement on
Tuesday, September 22, 1891, at 12 o'clock
noon. Approximately 20,000 settlers
surrounded the reservations awaiting the
starting signal for the rush to claim one of the
6,037, 160 acre parcels that were available.