About Joy Friedman Pottery

“Thirteen years ago we discovered Joy at the Rhinebeck Crafts Fair and ordered a blue dinnerware set, complete with platter, casserole, and creamer/ sugar.  We have been delighted to have these beautiful items that we have used every day.  They have stood up to the test of time and when we have lost some to slippery hands, we have gone back to Joy to "top us up" with more.”
Maeve O'Dea & Rick Meehan CT

Joy Friedman has been a professional potter since 1982.  She creates decorative stoneware in her studio, carefully hand-crafting each piece to emphasize quality, form, and function. 

Joy’s newest focus is her lace bowls. Each bowl is individually pierced and one-of-a-kind.  The bowls are first thrown on a potter’s wheel and then when the clay becomes leather-hard, the patterns around the rims are cut out by hand using an x-acto knife. Finally, the cut edges are sanded and smoothed.  Joy’s fine, artful piercing creates lacey bowls of endless variety.

When Joy sits down to cut out a lace bowl, even though she may have a motif in mind, the rhythm and the design emerge spontaneously as she works. As a result, no two bowls are alike. These patterns are inspired from leaves, flowers, animals, and ocean, but each design is also abstract and they often say something unique to each person.

When all of her pottery is thoroughly dry it is loaded in one of her two kilns and fired to 1800 degrees. Joy then decorates and glazes the pieces with her own formulated and vibrant colored glazes. She fires the pots a second time for approximately 11 hours to 2150 degrees. It takes a full day for the kiln to cool and then be unloaded.  Each piece of pottery has now been transformed into a strong and durable piece of vivid artwork.

Joy gets a lot of her inspiration from the natural world. She often decorates her pottery to represent landscapes, using colors of the desert, seaside, forest, and sunset.  Her forms are simple, with elegant lines and striking, multiple-layered glaze patterns.

Joy puts careful consideration into each pot.  They are pots for living with and using; for the table, cooking, serving, and celebrating.  A full line of dinnerware, lace bowls, dip and chip platters, lamps, pitchers, mugs, vases, ikebana, berry bowls, and more is available.

Joy Friedman Pottery is also available at the following locations:

Wellfleet Crafts, Wellfleet, MA.
Menage Gallery, Gloucester, MA. .
Silverscapes Design, Amherst, MA.
Happy Valley Gifts, Northampton, MA.
Salmon Falls Gallery, Shelburne Falls, MA.
Jonesborough Art Gallery, Jonesborough, TN.
Quaigh Design Centre, Wilmington, VT.
Mrs. Cake’s Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
The Blue Marble, Amherst, MA.

“Joy's Lace Bowls are a family favorite.  My Mother and I have given several of them as wedding presents to close friends and family.  Her rich colors, and intricate designs are very well received.  Joy has often made us a custom lace bowl for the perfect gift and one has traveled as far as England.”
Robin Corder     Amherst, MA

“Four years ago Joy walked into my gallery and I knew her pottery would sell wonderfully.  Her work had just what I look for-pottery that is elegant and functional, decorated with beautiful glazes that are strong and durable!  People are very attracted to her landscape designs.  The unique lace bowls sell extremely well, often as wedding presents.  Joy’s pots fly out of the gallery!”
Randy Ladd- Owner of Wellfleet Crafts Gallery
Wellfleet, MA