Ahna Iredale
Artist Profile Story by Amy Newman
“I’m not sure why I’m drawn to clay,” says potter Ahna Iredale, owner of Rare Bird Pottery in Homer. But get her talking, and it becomes clear that she is attracted by this earthy material’s ability to connect people.
“Pottery goes from birth to death,” she says, and her work reflects that life course. During more than 30 years as a potter, Ahna has made birth plates, wedding platters and funeral urns, along with more functional pieces like pots, bowls and mugs. She is intrigued by the idea that generations from now, an archaeologist may unearth one of her pieces and use it to explain life today.
She likes thinking that she’s a part of people’s daily lives as well.
“I love the idea that people have coffee or tea with me every day or that they go to friends and sit down for a meal and they’re using one of my pots,” she says. “I love being part of family rituals.”
Ahna’s passion for pottery arose unexpectedly. A pre-veterinary medicine major at Colorado State University, she enrolled in a pottery course to satisfy a need for elective credits. That one class changed the course of her life.
“I decided, ‘Oh, I’m going to be a potter instead,’ ” she recalls. After a short time working in Sand Point, Idaho, she and her husband moved to Sitka in 1980, where Ahna showed her pieces at Southeast Alaska art shows and sold them wholesale to Juneau shops. Increased opportunities for artists led them to Kenai in 1983. Ahna says she spent most weekends on the road, selling her pieces at shows throughout Southcentral.
“Within a year people thought I’d been around forever because I was so visible,” she laughs. “That was my goal.”
But life as a traveling artist became difficult once Ahna’s children arrived, so in 1992 the family moved to Homer, known as a haven for Alaska’s artists. She rented a small shack on the Homer Spit and with three artist friends opened Homer Clayworks, now celebrating its 16th season.
Ahna’s work has “always been quite refined,” which she attributes to those early years working in porcelain. That training, along with what she calls a Japanese-Norwegian aesthetic – nods to her first instructor, who was from Japan, and her Norwegian heritage – also helped to distinguish her from other potters in the early days.
As much as the medium she chose to work in influenced her style, her surroundings influence the design of her pieces.
Pieces created in Sitka had a lot of blue, and even more fish. In Kenai it was birch trees. Since moving to Homer, Ahna has noticed a reemergence of blue in her pieces, the result of gazing over Kachemak Bay and the expanse of blue sky visible from her studio. She expects shorebirds to migrate on to her pieces this summer as the birds make their way down south.
“I don’t think it was a conscious effort,” she says. “It’s just me being influenced by whatever my environment will be.”
The environment literally becomes part of her pieces as well. She has decorated pots with clay she dug from the bluffs overlooking Skilak Lake, and creates glazes made from local volcanic and spruce ash to enhance her designs.
Ahna has been a full-time potter for more than 30 years, but is quick to describe herself as more than “just this little studio potter.” She is active in the Homer arts community and was a founding member of the Bunnell Street Arts Center, which she continues to support in a volunteer capacity. She has organized Alaska ceramic exhibits in the Lower 48, teaches art to elementary students and hosts workshops in her studio. It all combines to create a rich life – one she approaches with as much enthusiasm today as when she enrolled in that first pottery class.
“I feel so lucky that I found something that I really enjoy and that I can do for a long time,” she says. “I foresee myself being a potter for years. That’s my intention. I’m certainly not bored with it.”
