About Wildwood Pottery

          Wildwood Pottery is a pottery studio operated in Plummer, Idaho, by Merrilyn Reeves.  Yes, that would be me!  Wildwood's humble beginnings were pottery student pieces sold at student sales and craft fairs in the late 1980's and early 1990's during the period I was originally taking classes at a local college. 

          Later on it grew to include an older pottery wheel in the family room and a small kiln in the garage.  This was not a very productive period because as anyone who has worked with clay knows, it is messy!!  Complaints about splashes of slurry on the desk beside the pottery wheel, clay fingerprints on the telephone receiver, and pieces of clay on the floor were justified, but dampened my enthusiasm!

          After our daughter Kim married, the studio occupied half of her small bedroom in the basement.  The other half of the room was home to my husband Waverley's hunting and reloading equipment.  A nice new Shimpo wheel now graced the center of the room and a shiny new Cress kiln joined the smaller one in the garage. 

          When our daughter Rachel moved into her own home, the reloading equipment moved into her newly vacated room, now my husband's den, and the pottery studio let out a sigh of relief and expanded to fill its whole room.  It seemed ever so spacious to both of us.  At that time we operated as Pottery by Merrilyn. 

          Well, times do change, don't they?!  In the years since, more classes have been taken, new and wonderful techniques learned, and more equipment acquired.  With greater skill, more pieces take less time to complete and more shelves are needed to accommodate the growing amount of green and bisque ware.  Thus, plans were made for a separate building with work and storage areas, more shelving and space for equipment, and a firing room.  Construction was begun in summer 2002 and now complete. 

          The new Wildwood Pottery studio houses the same Shimpo wheel and Cress kiln, not so new now, and also a newer Skutt kiln and a large slab roller and small extruder.  Classes are also being considered for a small number of students for the near future. 

Fall 2006

            Currently, wheel thrown pottery from porcelain clay the main focus of my work.  However, I also use stoneware and earthenware clay occasionally and hand-build some of my pieces.  The whimsical floral design is a recurring theme of decoration, although a number of other designs, such as footprints and fish, are also used.