Glass Pottery Story

Paloma Pottery emerged when a strong inclination to reduce, reuse and recycle inspired owner and artist, Nicole Whitney, to combine crushed recycled glass in her clay pieces. The combination created a unique crackle glass surface that sparkles and reflects light – enchanting the eyes with its intriguing depth of colors and textures. The distinct shapes and positioning of each fragment insures our handmade gifts to have a sparkle and depth that is truly unique.

Nicole working on the potter’s wheel.

“I am always trying to find new uses for things that may otherwise be thrown away. When I saw the results of adding broken glass to the pottery pieces I knew I had found my niche,” says Whitney.

Paloma Pottery was born in Jan of 2000 with a mission to run a socially responsible and sustainable business while providing unique recycled products at low affordable prices. We invite you to take a peek and see why customers say they love our unique products and great customer service...

The beginning of a new piece from a lump of clay. The artist enjoys working “off the hump,” creating several pottery pieces in a row. The production line style work is employed for efficiency and consistency. Paloma Pottery strives to create a unique one-of-a-kind product with uniformity and value to pass on the savings to the customer.

Working off the hump allows for multiple pieces to be created from one single lump of clay. A pottery bowl is created and the lip for the recycled glass rim is being defined with a wooden potters’ tool.
Our handmade bowls make great wedding gifts. Looking for unique wedding gifts or favors? We offer bulk prices on many of our heart shape gifts. Handmade with love, our sparkling glass pottery will enchant the eyes of both men and women.

A ceramic ring holder is born and texture is added to the pottery piece to create an organic look and feel.
Our classic wedding ring holder is one of our best sellers. These make excellent gifts for weddings, engagements or even yourself. In fact, many of our customers say it's best to just order two!

Hand building is another way of working with the clay. Where the wheel creates round symmetry, hand building allows for more freedom of shapes to be constructed. Using molds from found objects, edges are lifted for the glass soap dish.

Square pottery tiles for a display unit are lying flat to dry on recycled canvas from local business, Cool Canvas. Reduce, re-use, recycled when at all possible is important for Paloma Pottery as a sustainable business.

The pottery pieces are allowed to dry before going into the kiln for the bisque firing.

Once fired, the bisque ware is stamped with “Paloma Pottery” using iron oxide and is ready for glazing.

Buttons are lined up, glazed and then glass is added and loaded into the kiln. Textures and designs in the clay are achieved with natural and found objects (impressing or drawing with rocks, shells, etc.) giving an organic, nature inspired feeling. These pottery and glass buttons are a special order for Texture Clothing, a local hemp and natural fibers clothing company.

The kiln melts the glass and fuses it to the clay and glaze. Each piece is created to be a functional piece of pottery and art with as much versatility as possible. The semi porous crackle glass surface makes the popular recycled glass soap dish shown below a great gift for both him and her.

Artist unloads the kiln and inspects the finished products. The crackle glass surface created is smooth to touch and sparkles with profound rich colors and textures.

Stock is built up for immediate purchase in the Paloma Pottery online store. Paloma Pottery offers over 40 different hand-made recycled glass fused ceramic products at affordable prices.

Paloma's sparkling glass earrings are placed on display for selling at art festivals. Displays are handmade from found objects and other recycled materials.

Crushed glass pottery tiles are made for tiling our mosaic wall mirror or sold separately. Our recycled glass tiles make great backsplash and accent tiles for both kitchens and bath.

Wrought iron table with half moon shape tile. Glass pottery tile lays inside table and removes easily for cleaning.

Paloma's signature recycled glass necklaces are placed on display and ready for purchase. Recycled canvas is also used in the final display unit, which is custom made by the artist. The recycling mission is consistent throughout all creative and business processes.

Paloma Pottery products are all handmade often using shapes from found objects. Our recycled glass jewelry line is cut out using the plastic tops from deodorant containers. Finding new uses for things that would otherwise be thrown away and keeping overhead low allows Paloma Pottery to offer unique pottery and glass products at affordable prices.