Hello everyone!Welcome to our very first blog.
We are already 8 months into 2021 and it truly has felt like warp speed. Reflecting back on this year and our epically overwhelming 2020 I feel at a loss for words. It's been such a huge gamut of emotions. Although personal and collective loss has been exponential and ongoing, I find myself in gratitude with a renewed sense of why we do what we do.
At Rabbit Heart Ceramics we share a relentless curiosity for all things homemade. In the pursuit of making what we need and growing food, we have awoken creativity and found the confidence for grander and more elaborate possibilities. We have found connection to our ancestral roots, imagining a time when our most basic needs were made in our community. We wish to open dialogue about mass production and what it means for our non human kin. By offering small batch and made to order items, we are your local, handcrafted, woman created and operated alternative.
My intention moving forward is to share my process and experience monthly. What I've learned, what I'm working on, and what is happening in our home studio and garden. In hopes that through sharing, a connection of community will be made.
A u g u s t P r o d u c t F e a t u r e
Plates are magical little vessels in which we can pile our bounty and share in a gesture of love. Though plates are always on the menu (so to speak) I am happy to be featuring them this month. As the oregano, thyme and basil flourish in the garden we have been eating a lot of herb pasta that is delish cold or hot.
O u r G a r d e n P a r t 1
This is the side of our property the first week we moved in, February 2018.
After putting up a more private secure fence we started small by mulching and adding some peppers and herbs.
Our garden is an ever changing landscape. This photo is actually from last summer, since then we have moved our veggie patch to another part of our yard and planted native plants here. We have sages, mugwort, and an elderberry tree to name a few. Our intention is to restore native habitat for our local wildlife and pollinators. So far, we have seen more butterflies, bees, and birds than ever.
R a b b i t H e a r t S t u d i o
We used a palm router to create the edge on the sign and used a wood burning pen to etch in the letters. Then with a propane torch, scorched the surface. It was so dark that we outlined the letters with white acrylic paint. The final step was sealing with a non toxic outdoor weatherproof varnish.
Rabbit Heart Studio was born in Pomona. Finding this home allowed us to realize our dream because it had this little back house. It took one year to get this space fully functional.
My partner and I dove head first into back yard building. The shelves are made from scrap wood. The work benches we made to be custom fit for the space. We added shelves around the wheel and built a wedging table (where you knead the clay) from 4x4's and a cement top. It was the first table we'd ever built and our first time working with cement, as a result it is not perfect and we ended up epoxying over the cement to make it really smooth. It was a great learning experience and we are the wiser because of it.
As the months stretched on it appears the sun has bleached the sign quite nicely. Almost completely fading the wood scorching. It is much easier to read now.
P r o j e c t L a w n
Our front yard transformation started with converting our laundry washer into a grey water system. We kept the movement of the hose to a minimum so wherever the lawn died over the first summer ended up being ripped out. It gave us a beautiful border all around the property line to plant california natives and cactuses, and we are able to keep the remaining lawn green and lush just by washing our clothes. It was no easy feat, but after a couple of months we tore up the grass all along the fence by hand. The swale was created by digging down 6 inches with a pick axe, the small trench was then lined with cardboard and filled with found river rocks. We went on craigslist to find free rocks and even dug up a friends yard whose property sits on an old riverbed.
Within a few months our little one gallon plants have really taken off. It has been such a joy to watch them grow. We have Indian Mallow, Fairy Duster, Nopales, 'Queen of the Night' Cactus, Dwarf Lime Tree, Desert Lavender, California Lilac and Foothill Penstemon.
Thank you for sharing this journey with us. See you next month!