Ceramicist · Sofia, Bulgaria
I make one vessel at a time, and I can tell you exactly how it was made.
I am Elena. I throw iron-rich stoneware from a pit outside Suhindol, glaze it with beech ash from the stove in my studio, and fire it to 1240 °C in a second-hand kiln in a converted printworks. Almost everything here is one of one: buy a piece and it is yours alone, commission one and you get to argue with me about the shape first.
How the work is made
Nothing here is quick, and none of it can be repeated.
Every piece starts as a bag of iron-rich stoneware from a pit outside Suhindol. I wedge it for twenty minutes, because air pockets are the enemy of a good firing, and throw it to a wall of about six millimetres — heavier than it needs to be, so that I can take the rest off two days later when the clay is leather-hard and the foot ring can be cut and the base signed.
Then it is fired twice. The bisque takes it to 980 °C over eight hours, and I do not open the kiln early; I did once. The glaze is beech ash from the stove in the studio, sieved through a kitchen strainer and mixed with feldspar and a little iron, put on by dip and pour with the foot wiped bare. The glaze firing climbs to 1240 °C and comes down over another fourteen hours, because ash glazes need that long descent to break — olive-grey where the glaze sits thick, dry orange where it thins across the throwing rings.
None of that produces a repeatable object, which is the honest answer to the question I am asked most often. I can give you the same clay, the same glaze and the same size, and the piece will still be its own.
“I asked for four plates to go with a bowl I bought two years ago. Elena asked me three questions about how we actually eat, then made something better than what I had described.” Marta, Barcelona
Index of works
Six pieces from the last two years.
The prices are what these sold for. If you want something similar it is a commission, not a shop order, and it starts with a message rather than a basket.
| Piece | Material | Dimensions | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ash Vessel No. 4 | 2025 · Beech-ash glaze over iron-rich stoneware | 31 × 19 cm | €340 |
| Bottle Vase, Tall | 2025 · Tenmoku over iron stoneware | 38 cm | €420 |
| Wide Serving Bowl | 2024 · Satin white, iron speckle | 34 cm | €180 · sold |
| Cups for Two | 2025 · Tenmoku stoneware | 220 ml each | €96 the pair |
| Standing Form | 2024 · Unglazed outside, copper red within | 46 cm | €890 |
| Dinner Plates, four | 2023 · Ash glaze, iron speckle | 26 cm each | €260 the set · sold |
Two of these are already in other people's kitchens Prices are what they sold for · the rest are on the shelf in Sofia · list checked on 18 February 2026
Commissions
What a commission actually involves.
Most commissions are a set of plates, a jug for a wedding, a vessel for one particular windowsill, or a replacement for something that got dropped. I take four or five a month, which is why the answers below are as blunt as they are.
You write to me. A use, a size, a deadline — or nothing but a photograph of the shelf it has to live on. The vaguer the brief, the more questions you will get back.
I answer with a plan. What I think will work, what it costs, and which firing it can go into. If I am the wrong person for it, I say so in the first reply and name someone better.
You pay half. I throw it, mix the glaze, and send you photographs of a test tile before the real piece goes anywhere near the kiln.
Six to nine weeks later it arrives, double-boxed in wood wool, with the glaze recipe written inside the lid in case you ever want it repeated.
Workshops
Two days at the wheel, most weekends.
Saturday and Sunday, ten until four, four people at four wheels in the same room where I work. You will throw, ruin it, throw it again, and keep the three pieces that survive. No experience needed, and no one has ever left without something they were pleased with.
- Clay, glaze, two firings and lunch from the bakery next door
- Pieces ready to collect in three weeks, or posted for cost
- Gift places available with a printed card