About Us

who are these folks?
Sierra Terra Cotta is the pottery production studio of Stan Cheren, designer-craftsman, with roots in the North Carolina pottery tradition since 1960.

The legacy started with a summer ceramics workshop with Cynthia Bringle at the Penland School near Spruce Pine, NC. That's all it took for a fine arts painting major and art history minor from Florida State University to get captured by clay.

the city to the country to the city to the country
From there it was a variety of teaching positions in public and private schools, graduate studies at East Tenneseee State University, a teaching post at a private art college in Detroit and then the creation of a crafts-centered community near Burnsville in the Western North Carolina mountains. Years later came the ocean to ocean journey across Route 66 from Nags Head to Los Angeles.

And after a Wild West Coast career (don't ask) and the creation of Sierra Terra Cotta, we packed up our house and studio in Los Angeles into a moving van, station wagon and sedan with four cats and a dog and headed back East along Route 40 – through San Bernadino, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Nashville, Asheville, and back across North Carolina over the creek and through the woods to seven lush acres in the Piedmont near Chapel Hill.

It's been a long and very interesting journey, but now we're home...


about our work
Our work is all grounded on a traditional terra cotta. We work with a combination of a regional terra cotta throwing body in addition to a matching casting slip with our original design slip molds. We fire to ^05-06 oxidation. Glazing is mostly a majolica combination with the overglazes worked directly on top of the white unfired majolica base. Usually we do a bisque and then glaze fire. Although sometimes we will single-fire a greenware or, in the case of some of our decorative plates, a triple-fire sequence to get the glaze richness we are looking for. Great results, but high mortality – as much as a 30% mortality!

The glazes are all food safe and can be microwaved and put into the dishwasher without concern. Our outdoor pieces like our bird feeders and planters have been tested through sub-freezing temperatures, snow and ice and are doing very well.

y'all stay with us now, you hear
So that's where we've been and where we are now. Come visit us at our regional shows and studio sales here on Little Creek to see where we're going. Thanks for stopping by and visiting with us. Bring some of your friends along next time. Send us your email address so we can let you know about our private studio sales and shows.