Crafted for Daily Life

By Robin Goetz

Photography by Gil Vaknin

There’s THE DREAM. The one where you show up to a class you didn’t mean to take—it’s the wrong class. You are panicked, then you wake up. One could say that ceramic artist Bracken Fern is LIVING that dream. In ninth grade, she was mistakenly enrolled in a ceramics class instead of photography, and it literally changed the course of her life. Today, Fern’s Croton Falls studio looks like she is preparing for a giant feast—the space is adorned with mugs, bowls, pitchers and, of course, Audrey, the studio pup. The artist has spent over 20 years creating what she calls “functional art”—art that people can literally use and love every day. 

And it all changed on that fateful day of freshman year at Fox Lane High School.

 “I walked into the class, excited about taking photography,” recalls Fern, who grew up in Mount Kisco. “Then I realized that someone had put in the wrong code, and I ended up in ceramics. It was too late to make the change, so I just went with it. And I soon knew it was meant to be.”

Fern spent that year, and the rest of high school, studying ceramics, as well as two summers at Skidmore College, learning under the guidance of ceramic luminary Regis Brodie, and many others. She continued her studies at the renowned New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, where she earned a bachelor of fine arts in ceramics. 

“It’s a very good school for ceramics; you are fully immersed in everything ceramic,” Fern explains. “I took ceramics, art history, glazed chemistry and electrical engineering to learn how to take care of my kiln. I learned how to make my own clay and my own glaze. I really learned everything, start to finish. And some of the classes are taught by some of the greats of our day.”

A few years later, Fern earned her master’s degree in art education from Manhattanville College (now Manhattanville University) and then, inspired by her high school ceramics teacher, spent a decade as a K–12 art teacher in area schools. She loved teaching, but not the politics. So in 2019, she left to manage and teach at Railyard Arts Studio in Croton Falls. Throughout all this time, Fern made mugs and other  items for friends who asked, but nothing more.

A new plan

“It was never my goal to launch my own business,” Fern explains. “But I started going to festivals when I began working at Railyard Arts, and I realized that I really liked selling at festivals. I really like talking to people and selling my product. I enjoy when people send me pictures of my stuff, and I enjoy when I run into somebody downtown and they say, ‘Hey, I have your mug. I drink out of it every morning.’ I get a little high from it.”

When she first launched Bracken Fern Handmade Ceramics, she used the two kilns at Railyard Arts to fire her pieces, but between her pieces and her students’, she couldn’t get everything through the kilns fast enough. Fern needed a larger kiln, and she needed more space. 

“I sent a text to friends who I had met maybe five or six times and asked if they knew of a place where I could combine my studio and my apartment, and they invited me over. They offered me a 5,000-square-foot apartment above a beautiful three-car garage on a private estate that abuts the reservoir system.”

Fern moved in and, almost immediately after, bought a large kiln on Facebook Marketplace. It was made in 1993 and could fire 500 mugs at a time, but she had to pick it up the same day. So, she drove to Boston, fetched up the kiln, brought it to her new home and had her service guy take it apart and rewire it. Then she purchased the remaining equipment.

“During COVID, people bought everything they needed to make their own home studios because they couldn’t go into the studio,” Fern explains. “I purchased my slab roller, my potter’s wheel and my pugmill from a guy in North Salem who never even opened the boxes.”

Soon, Fern had gained a “significant following” from local fairs and markets, which range from the Fine Day Fair in South Salem and the North Salem Artisanal Farmer’s Market to the annual Pound Ridge Flea and the bi-annual Basilica Farm & Flea in Hudson, all of which she still sells at today.

Fern’s fans would (and still do) check out her Instagram account, email her or even text to see where she will be. And thanks to her teaching background, Fern says she’s good with faces, so she remembers her past customers and what they’ve purchased. With her regular customers, she also knows the colors they prefer.

Hitting her stride

Fern says that the pandemic helped her business thrive. 

“People were spending more time at home,” she explains. “They were cooking more and sitting at the dinner table together, staring at everything they owned,” Fern says. “They were collectively looking for ways to change things up. They wanted to invest in things they would enjoy serving on and eating off. My commissions really started to take off.” 

One year into the pandemic, Fern’s sales “almost tripled,” with approximately 75 percent of all sales being ready-to-buy items, mainly mugs. 

“Mugs are my business card,” she says. “It’s hilarious to say, but somebody doesn’t necessarily want to buy a whole dinnerware set right away, but they will buy a mug for 35 bucks. Then they get home, and they start enjoying that mug, so they reach out to me and say, ‘Hey, I’m really enjoying this mug. How much is a dinnerware set?’ Or, ‘What if I ordered six bowls from you?’ Or, ‘Hey, my niece is getting married, and she really enjoys this mug. Can you make me six mugs or six bowls or serving plates?’ And so, the mugs became this little business card, which is crazy.”

What makes Fern’s mugs extra special is the handle. It’s a “three-finger handle,” as opposed to one. It was a design Fern made for herself because she was frustrated by the small handles that didn’t fit her hand. Her mugs, she says, feel “substantial.” People buy them for themselves and then begin buying mugs or other items as gifts for their friends and family.

“At one fair, a woman bought this beautiful white pitcher and then purchased some flowers from Wild Iris, who was also there, to give to her best friend,” says Fern. “When she arrived at her friend’s house, she learned that her friend already had my white pitcher sitting on her desk. Of course, I received a picture from the friend because she’s one of my really good clients. And then the woman emailed me, saying, ‘Okay, so she really likes your work. What else do you have?’”

As Fern’s reputation grew, so did her custom orders, which she says are now about half of her business.

“Last year at Basilica Flea, this couple came up to me and said, ‘We want to order an entire dinnerware set,’” Fern remembers. “They didn’t even pick up a single piece. They just wanted an entire dinnerware set in green, and they paid me up front. That is kind of what you dream for at a festival.”

Curating a dining experience

Fern believes ceramics can, and should, be personal. For her, having her hands in the clay and creating led her to realize how much she wanted her creations to be touched, held and used. So, she creates dinnerware, mugs, teapots, pasta bowls, vases and pretty much everything in between.

 “I never want my pieces sitting on a shelf,” she says. “I want them to be a part of a morning and evening routine, part of life.”

This concept of morning and evening routines comes from Fern’s childhood, where it was “important that everyone sat down and had dinner at 6 p.m., no matter what.” 

As an adult, Fern will sometimes visit her brother for family meals, but she also loves cooking and trying new recipes at home. She lists homemade pasta, braised short ribs and fish among her favorites.

“I’ll spend 12 hours in the studio and then go to the grocery store because I’ve been thinking about a meal all day long and I have to get it onto a plate,” she explains. “I’ll come home and spend another two hours in the kitchen cooking. So, I’m making the pottery, and then I’m making the meal that goes on the pottery. That’s very important to me.”

Fern works with clients to truly “curate a dining experience.” She incorporates colors from their home, patterns and memories, sketching them out on paper, or, depending on the order, creating a sample set in several shades so the customer can see what the final color will look like. It takes Fern anywhere from six weeks to three months to complete an order, mainly based on the size and how long it takes the customer to decide on the color. But eventually, each piece of art makes it to the family’s table, where it will hold a favorite meal, create new memories and possibly become a beloved heirloom. 

“I often wonder what conversations happen around my dishes, what thoughts they might spark,” says Fern. “I love being a part of bringing people together.”

“I did a wedding registry last year,” she continues. “I met the couple at the Katonah Sidewalk Sale, and then they came over and we had dinner together. I showed them everything I had—all the bowls, all the plates—and we had a nice time together. They called me the next day and told me what they wanted to order. Then I built it out on my website so their wedding guests could order it.”

Fern’s art extends beyond the family dinner table. She has designed custom dinnerware and serving pieces for numerous restaurants in the area, including Bailey’s Backyard in Ridgefield, Cocotte in Old Saybrook and Quartiere in Stamford. She keeps each restaurant’s color in stock so she can easily and quickly fulfill their replacement orders.

In addition to restaurants, Fern also collaborates with local artisans, such as Sarah Coldwell of Honeybee Grove Flower Farm to create custom vases and glass blower Moshe Bursuker of  Evari Studio on cheese cloches; she makes the plate and he makes the glass dome. 

Fern has also shown her work in local galleries, such as Chroma Fine Art Gallery in Katonah, and has sold her pieces in the gift shop at The Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield. But even when it’s displayed as art, Fern’s work is still completely usable in everyday life.

Throwing, centering, firing and glazing

It takes approximately two minutes for Fern to throw (form) one plate and four to seven minutes to throw a bowl. A large, shapely vase can take as long as 45 minutes, and the entire process, from start to finish, takes several days. 

First, Fern sketches her item on paper, creating a visual map that guides her through each section and turn. Then, she wedges (kneads) the clay to remove any air bubbles before centering it on a wheel. For a plate, her clay is flat, and she simply pulls from the center once to create a rim. For a bowl, the clay is in a mound, and, using her thumbs, she creates the floor of her piece. Then, she focuses on the height, moving the “bottom floor” to the top three to four times. After she’s created the shape with her hands, she takes out her tools.

“I have these two metal scrapers, which are kind of like Wolverine, that I place in each hand and use on the inside and outside to make the curve and shape I want,” Fern explains. 

Because making a dinnerware set requires precision—plates and bowls should stack well—Fern must also be precise.

“I also throw with a laser level set to different heights, and I use a ruler so that I know where each mark is; I can’t necessarily mark the piece since it would mark the surface and change the line of the piece,” she explains. “I also use calipers to measure the circumference; I probably have six calipers that are set to different measurements.”

But even with precise measurements, the final products may not be exact or stack perfectly because clay shrinks. 

“With clay, there’s a 15 to 22 percent shrinkage,” Fern says. “But because I know that ahead of time, I test it. I even have a shrinkage ruler, which George Costanza cannot borrow.”

The finished wet piece dries for about 24 hours. Then, when it’s “leather hard,” she trims it with a razor-sharp loop tool, cleaning any extra weight off the bottom and creating a slight curve when needed. Next, she cleans the inside and adds her maker’s mark. 

When a piece has a crack or breaks, Fern recycles the clay. She’ll rehydrate it and mix it with her new clay. Otherwise, the piece will dry for several more days, which is when it might shrink. Once the water has fully evaporated from the clay, she bisque-fires the piece.

“I put it in the kiln to burn off any organic materials that are going to affect my glaze,” she explains. “Some people throw with paper in their pieces or a grog or something similar to give it a little extra structure, and those need to be burned out. So, I fire it to 1,900 degrees, and then I take it out and glaze it.”

But first, Fern adds wax to the base of the piece to prevent that part from being glazed and therefore sticking to the kiln shelf. Then the piece is dipped into a colored glaze and fired, which takes anywhere from 24 to 36 hours. During this time, the silica in the glaze melts and bonds with the clay, making the ceramic strong and resistant to water. Fern says she does at least 200 firings a year.

Once complete, her art is both microwave- and oven-safe. Her dinnerware includes several sizes of plates, a variety of bowls (coup, pasta, salad, tea), mugs and more. Plus, she also creates water pitchers, serving bowls, nesting bowls, vases, etc. She always has mugs and several basics in stock, and, of course, anything can be custom ordered. 

Fern’s favorite commission to date? Her high school freshman social studies teacher recently ordered a set of nesting bowls as a wedding gift for his daughter. Perhaps it’s because that specific request reminds Fern of that serendipitous day when an error in code led her to a lifetime of creation. 

Bracken Fern’s work will be on display at Chroma Fine Art Gallery in Katonah on August 20–September 15.

This article was published in the July/August 2024 print edition of Connect to Northern Westchester.