Working from her home/studio in Chilmark, MA on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Heather Goff handcrafts decorative, functional pottery and tiles.
Decorative Pottery and Tiles, Handmade on Martha\'s Vineyard
Working from her home/studio in Chilmark, MA on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Heather Goff handcrafts decorative, functional pottery and tiles.
Heather’s Folk Tiles are available at her home gallery which she shares with her partner, Bill O’Callaghan. Please check out the Instagram feed to see what is coming out of the kiln!
Pottery Shop Hours
May – September
Monday – Saturday: 11-5
Sundays: 2 – 5
October – Christmas
Wednesday- Saturday: 11-5
Sundays: 2 – 5
January – April
by appointment. Please call 508-955-9944
Her functional ceramic pottery is available directly from her home gallery. She will ship her work anywhere in the world.
We have a new pottery shop/gallery and sculpture trail on our property in Chilmark, and I have temporarily closed my Etsy shop. Work comes out of the kiln, lands in the shop, and visitors stop by and purchase it. Eventually, I’ll be redesigning the online store so that people can see the full range of designs that I offer and have pieces made to order. In the meantime, please check out the Instagram feed to see what I am working on, and have in stock. If you see anything that interests you, I can send you photographs. I ship!
Here is a video of what is on my pottery shelves.
We said goodbye to Frankie today. 💔 I wrote this poem about him several weeks ago.
The Old Dog
by Heather Goff
03/01/23
The old dog trusts blindly
bumping into walls
stuck in corners
until I gently set him right.
18 months gone
his family moving overseas
he joined us
the forgotten puzzle piece
shaped by years to fill their needs
dropped off at a strange house
now the odd one out
welcomed with my sigh of resignation.
Fed and walked with my dogs
he felt for a fit
sunning on the summer deck
by the winter wood stove,
out of the way at first
then gradually underfoot
tripped over more often than not.
The months ground his age up a year
and again
clouding his eyes dark
distilling him to knobby bone
bowed like the uncomfortable arch of the grave,
his gait marionette stiff.
His dependency looped strings to me
tugging my attention:
first the steps to outside,
then the cycle of diapers washed and dried,
stretching soft fleece over his cold frame,
each new task another hook in my chest.
Now the dark hour before dawn,
I lift him cradled to my breast
safe from the resentful nips
of the sleeping host.
And carry him outside
standing vigil
as he presses his back legs down
a stream of liquid staining the ground
then curls further to eliminate
before wide turning
a boat adrift from its mooring
to face the steps.
Entering the house
I gather him close
whispering in his deafness
that I recognize his goodness
and refastening his diaper
I take a moment to rub spine and ears
Then turn to climb back to my slumber
as he circles once and collapses onto his bed.
For how can I not love
the one who needs so much
yet asks for nothing.
I don’t know if any of you are like me but when I am confronted with a blank store-bought pad of expensive paper, I freeze up and that’s why I’ve always been so much more comfortable experimenting and working on craft paper or cut-up paper bags even because it just allows me to release.
I revisited a daily practice over a month ago of drawing and experimenting everyday in a journal and I made myself a junk Journal out of cardboard and craft paper, just to give myself freedom to do whatever I want and not worry about wasting expensive precious supplies.
It’s been so fantastic and liberating, I’m really grateful and I’m hoping to continue every day just doing something in the journal because I think it’s helping massage those creative muscles and helping me improve my drawing as well. I’m amazed how often I need reminding about the importance of a daily practice.
February and March on the island are very introspective times. Donald Nitche runs a bimonthly poetry drop-in via zoom in the winter with the help of a grant from the Martha’s Vineyard Cultural Council and our local libraries and I had the good fortune to join the mid February session. It opened a flood gate of poems in me, and here is one of them.
THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
I look up from the road’s curve,
rimmed with stone walls, leaning trees,
and history
to see your bumper in my rear-view mirror,
muscled as a bully,
the proud logo centered.
And I wish you wouldn’t.
crowd and push me faster
with your impatience.
Don’t you realize how hard I’ve worked at slowing down? on these country lanes in this small community,
the struggle to unclench lists of expectations propelling me always past the now,
to fight free of the hurry-up current
and find the quiet, unique, drift
of a hometown,
to look up, allowing my gaze to be an invitation,
and listen for the layered notes of the story outside my head -
a shared harmony.
to notice that connection is as necessary and profound as breath.
I am opening a space inside myself, expansive enough to hold us all,
with room for conversation and kindness,
for messiness and reverence,
a cathedral of stillness and wonder.
Please do not hurry me.
I am going the speed limit.
Heather Goff
We have sold all of the eyes in the shop! It is past time to start a new batch. I poured a plaster mold of the original carvings that I did so that I can make multiples. I press clay into the mold, stamp them, and inset the high fire wire in the back at this stage so that a hanging wire can be strung after they are fired. After they are pried out of the mold, I trim them and clean them up and sometimes add to them.
The last evening of August, Bill and I drove the 30 minutes to Oak Bluffs after dinner. We purchased ice cream and then walked out Circuit Ave extension beside the sun setting waters, looping around to the new walkway and out to the end of the fishing pier. It was beautiful. And then we saw the joyful music of Sol y canto. An altogether lovely night!
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