Tucson potter brings whimsy and craft to clay

“Clay was always my favorite thing when I was growing up,” she said. “I remember playing when I was like 4 or 5 years old with Play-Doh, and getting very frustrated I couldn't keep it.”

She said it was her fourth-grade teacher who really fostered her love of ceramics through clay projects in class.

“That was what spurred it on,” Henshaw said. “I used to always ask my mom and my grandma, ‘why can't we just get a kiln?’”

Those early experiences were so formative that she still has her ceramic Beatrix Potter Jemima Puddle-Duck that she made in that fourth-grade class — along with a few other clay pieces she kept from her childhood — which are now lovingly displayed in her home studio.

Her love of ceramics continued into middle school, and she sought out any opportunity to work with clay. “I would try to do it as much as I could, if it was in a class or it was in a club or something after school.”

Henshaw went on to study music at college and left ceramics behind for a time, but would still find excuses to pass by the ceramics classes on campus and watch the students work.

In 2014, she finally made her return to the ceramics studio and fell in love with ceramics all over again.

“I just decided that the kids were a little bit older, and it was a little more convenient for me to add a class into my schedule, so I started taking classes at Pima County,” Henshaw said. “I walked in and was like, ‘this is what I want to do.’ I took one or two classes, and then about a year later, we bought the first kiln.”

When she and her husband started a remodel on their house, they created a space for her own home studio so she could pursue her passion.

“It was the plan to take classes, try to figure out what my style was, learn as much as I could, and at some point, I would start selling,” Henshaw said.

Those plans were put on hold when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020.

“I took that year to refine my style and figure out what I really wanted to do, make some more things, figure out how it worked with the kiln, and get things going, and then I officially started Melissa Henshaw Ceramics at the end of 2020,” she said.

Henshaw’s bright colors and carved, illustrated designs have become her signatures as an artist.

“I like things that tend to be a little more modern looking, but also have a little bit of whimsy to them,” she said. "We were on a trip somewhere, and I had seen a picture of a little cactus scene, and I was like, ‘oh, that would be cute.’ And so I came home and I started figuring out how to put that on pots.”

To achieve her cactus and flower landscape pieces, she uses mishima technique, a ceramic inlay method where she carves her designs into leather-hard clay and fills the grooves with color.

“That took, I'd say, probably a year and a half, or two years, to hone in on how it was gonna work,” she said. “So I started with that cactus design, and then I just took off.”

Her process for creating designs is working in small batches of eight to 10 pieces at a time to refine and master her pieces.

“I make multiple cactus cups, I make multiple planters, and they're all very, very similar,” Henshaw said. “I've got pieces from over the years, where you're like, ‘oh, this one's really good,’ and then ‘let's try this, oh that one's not very good,’ and then ‘let's try this, and let's try that.’ And then, even since I started selling, things have slowly evolved.”

Each piece could take her one or two weeks to make, between drying time, kiln firings and glazing.

“Once the piece is thrown, it has to set up enough to dry,” Henshaw said. “Then it depends — am I trimming on the same day? Am I trimming a different day?”

Before the pieces are ready for the kiln, she also carves her design into the clay.

“Pieces probably take 15 minutes on average to carve. I can carve at this point pretty quick, because I kind of have the design. If it's something that's newer, then it's going to take a little bit longer,” she said. “And if it’s bigger, it's going to take me twice as long.”

The carved pieces then head to the kiln for their first firing, which takes around 24 hours to complete.

“It goes up to a little over 1,900 degrees,” Henshaw said. “And then it has to cool all the way back down.”

“From there, I either cover in glazes if it's just gonna be a regular piece, or I paint the design with multiple layers of under glazes,” she said. “And then most everything gets covered in clear, and the inside gets glazed, and then it goes back into the kiln for the second fire.”

The second round in the kiln is 32 hours, and the temperature heats up to almost 2,200 degrees, Henshaw said.

If you go

Since 2021, Henshaw has been a familiar face at local markets, and her work will be featured at two upcoming events before the summer season.

Henshaw is part of Southern Arizona Clay Artists — a collective of potters from all over Tucson, including hobby potters, professional potters and teachers — and her pieces will be available at their upcoming gallery show in April.

The Spring from the Earth SACA Ceramics Exhibition will be held April 4 to 28, at Gallery 2Sun Now and Then, located at La Plaza Shoppes, 6538 E. Tanque Verde Road.

She will also be part of the Community Gardens of Tucson Bloomin’ Bash event on Sunday, April 12, from 1 to 4 p.m. at 755 N. Magnolia Ave., near North Rosemont Boulevard and East Fifth Street.