MEET LEAH
DESIGNER + MAKER
I have been exploring the lengths and limits of clay sine 2016. Mostly self taught, I originally began wheel throwing and moved swiftly into slip casting and mould making. Looking to achieve shapes that were outside the abilities of a pottery wheel. Slip casting and handbuilding cover a large part of my current practice.
HIGH NOON, a Toronto based ceramics company, designs and creates pieces with the beauty of simplicity in mind. Using her dance background, creator Leah Lavergne draws inspiration from movement; an essential element to High Noon’s aesthetic. Whether it’s morning, noon or night, our goal is to provide pieces that bring a sense of comfort and excitement to the everyday routine.
THE METHOD
Our pieces are created with various slip casting and hand building techniques, further highlighting the handmade quality of the product. You can see subtle variances of texture, pigment, and shape making each piece unique.
Each piece starts with a hand built clay sample or 3D printed prototype of a CAD drawing, from which we build a plaster mold. Building a mold allows us to repeat shapes we enjoy and spend more time through the hand carving process after the pieces have been, what we call, "slip-casted" in clay. Slip casting is the method of pouring a liquid clay body into a dry, porous mould. As a result, the liquid is slowly extracted from the clay body creating a shell of the desired shape.
Once each piece has set and has been carefully carved through and edited, they are placed in the kiln for the first firing. It is then that a paint-on glaze is applied. WIth this application we like to show off both the raw and finished quality the clay has to offer. The glaze is a smooth-to-the-touch glassy portion intersecting with the rough and raw quality of the clay body base.