Meet the Maker

Hi, I’m Heather Gillespie — the potter behind Keystone Pottery.

I took ceramics in high school, set it down for a few years, and picked it back up as an adult — turns out the itch never really left. Now I throw stoneware by hand in a home studio in the hills of McKean County, PA, using brown speckled clay from a supplier in Pittsburgh.

I live surrounded by the Allegheny National Forest, and it shows up in the work — a lot of my glazes are inspired by the colors I see around me: bark, moss, creek water, that flat gray the sky gets right before it snows. I’m not trying to paint pictures of the forest. It comes out in the palette.

I don’t mass-produce, and it shows in the timeline: every mug, bowl, vase, and soap dispenser starts as a lump of clay on the wheel, handles are pulled by hand, and each piece takes 3-4 weeks from wheel to glaze fire. It’s slow on purpose. Each piece comes out a little different — that’s not a flaw, it’s just what happens when a person makes something instead of a machine.

This is pottery meant for actual daily use, not a shelf. It’s dishwasher-safe, durable, and made with lead-free, non-toxic glazes because I want you to trust what’s touching your food. Everything ships in plastic-free packaging. It’s small-batch and woman-owned, which means slower production but a lot more attention per piece.

When I’m not at the wheel, I’m at home with a husband, a small zoo of dogs and cats, and a flock of chickens I feed on a schedule they’ve never once respected.

Peace, love, and mud,

— Heather