David Yager

I’ve been working with clay for probably half a century. When I was a kid visiting my grandparents in Oregon, I used to dig up clay, bring it home and make things out of it. I went to study business at Washington State University and took a ceramics class for fun. I realized I was spending much more time in the ceramics lab than in business classes, so I changed my major to art.

One of my early mentors was Michael Lucero, a nationally renowned New York-based ceramics artist, whose work has been featured in the Smithsonian. I was lucky enough to study under Michael at California State University, Chico, as well as under Jack Windsor, who started the CSUC ceramics program and was a master glaze scientist.

My stoneware is a white, fine-grained clay that is both lightweight and strong, with properties similar to porcelain. I like to make functional pieces—things that are beautiful but that people can use. I choose to work in high fire, which is more expensive and more difficult, but results in highly durable pieces. I love the idea of people having my work and using it—drinking their morning coffee out of one of my mugs, or making a salad in one my bowls and serving it to their family.

In the last few years I’ve been honing my signature “swirly” pieces that use many colorful glazes that have only recently become available at high temperatures, and which characterize much of my current work. In 2022, I began embellishing my signature on the bottom of my large bowls, adding Sea Ranch scenes like our signature sheep and cypress hedgerows. These became popular, so now I’m painting such scenes on the inside of bowls as well.

My wife, Tempra, and I built our home on the Sea Ranch in 2018, complete with a solar array that provides all the energy for the house and firing my kiln. If you want to see the world’s tiniest ceramics studio, dubbed the “microstudio,” along with our beautiful cedar-clad, sun filled home and garden, please visit us on the Tour.

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