Each piece of stoneware from LA Pottery is hand-crafted solely by the artist, Larry Allen.   His inspiration for his designs comes largely from African and Native American art.   Larry makes each vessel from a special black stoneware clay through multiple glazings and firings.  Most of his pieces involve delicately carving designs into the surface of the wheel-thrown vessel.

Larry has spent decades perfecting the glazes and techinques you can find today in his art work.  All of his pottery is wheel-thrown and mostly involves a technique known as Sgraffito.  This is a sophisticated method of incising designs onto leather-hard clay that has been completely covered with a colored slip (clay solution). 

All vessels are made out of stoneware clay.  The clay is a “special black” clay.  After the vessels are formed they are covered with a slip solution that is mixed and after the slip has stiffened on the vessel it is covered with a wax coating. This allows the carving of designs into the clay.  The vessels are bisque fired, then the interior is glazed and fired again to maturity. In the final stage, Larry highlights each piece with a low fire red glaze and refires each piece.