The studio
I am the whole company: the throwing, the glazing, the invoices and the sweeping.
I started at the wheel in 2008 and have sold nothing else since 2013. My name is on every piece because I made every piece, including the ones that went wrong, and I would rather you knew which of those you were buying.
Where I work
Studio 3, an old printworks on Tsar Samuil.
It is in the yard behind a bakery, up a metal staircase, with north light from three long windows and a permanent smell of bread and wet clay. Cold in January, unbearable in August, and the only place I have ever been able to think straight.
The kiln is a second-hand Rohde I bought in 2016 from a workshop in Plovdiv that was closing. It is electric, so everything I make is fired in oxidation between 1220 and 1240 °C — which means no true reduction glazes, no shino, no wood-firing ash flashing. I say that here so nobody commissions a copper red expecting the colour they saw in a Japanese catalogue.
The studio is open by appointment only, usually Thursdays and Fridays. It is a working room with a kiln in it, not a shop, and I would rather you saw it while something is actually being made.
Training
Four years of school, two years of production, and a lot of ruined clay.
| Years | Where | What |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 – 2010 | National Academy of Art, Sofia | Ceramics. Learned to draw a curve before learning to throw one. |
| 2010 – 2012 | A production workshop outside Montelupo, Tuscany | Six days a week, two hundred pieces a day. Speed, and how to repeat a form. |
| 2013 | Residency, Faenza | Glaze chemistry, and the ash glazes I still use. |
| 2014 – 2019 | A shared workshop in Lozenets, Sofia | Commissions by day, my own work at night. Learned to price properly in 2017. |
| 2019 – now | Studio 3, the old printworks, Sofia | My own kiln, my own keys, one door I lock myself. |
The process
From a bag of clay to something you can put on a table.
Step 01 · Wedging
Twenty minutes of kneading
Air pockets are the enemy of a good firing. It is dull work and it decides everything that follows.
Step 02 · Throwing
On the wheel, wet
The form comes off the wheel heavier than it needs to be. I throw to a wall thickness of about six millimetres and take the rest off later.
Step 03 · Turning
Leather-hard, two days later
The foot ring is cut, the base is signed, the weight drops and the piece stops feeling like a student pot.
Step 04 · Bisque
First firing, 980 °C
Eight hours up, twelve hours cooling. I do not open the kiln early. I did once.
Step 05 · Glazing
Dip, pour, wipe
Ash glaze on the outside, a thin liner inside. The foot stays bare so nothing sticks to the shelf.
Step 06 · Glaze firing
1240 °C, then a long cool
Fourteen hours of firing, another fourteen of cooling. Ash glazes need that slow descent to break the way they do.
Commissions
What I take on.
- Tableware in sets, from four pieces upwards
- Vessels to a size and a colour, for a room I can see photographs of
- Wedding and house-warming pieces with a date stamped in the foot
- Replacements for something of mine that got broken
- Teaching: weekend workshops, and one-to-one days on the wheel
And what I don't
What I turn down.
- Copies of another maker's design, however loose the copying
- Matching a photograph exactly — glazes do not read instructions
- Rush orders under three weeks, because the kiln does not hurry
- Wholesale runs over forty pieces; that is a factory, not a studio
- Anything for a table that has to survive a commercial dishwasher
Honest note on lead times: I answer enquiries on Tuesdays and Fridays, so give me three days before you chase. From the end of October I stop taking commissions for December, because everything must be fired twice and the kiln holds what it holds. March, April and September are usually the quiet months if you are in a hurry.
Shows and shelves
Where the work has been, and where it lives now.
Exhibitions and fairs
- 2025 · Group show, Sofia City Art Gallery
- 2024 · Ceramics fair, Faenza — selected for the main hall
- 2023 · Two-person show, a gallery in Vienna
- 2022 · Craft fair, Plovdiv — first prize for a tableware set
Stockists
- A design shop in Copenhagen — vessels and cups
- A ceramics gallery in Vienna — the larger forms
- The museum shop in Faenza — one piece at a time
- The Saturday market in Sofia, in summer, weather permitting
Everything on this site is sold by me, from the studio, at the same price the shops pay.