Jess Guatney is a ceramic artist and outdoor adventurer based in Seattle, WA. Starting her creative journey as a photographer in 2019, she was drawn to the outdoors, capturing fleeting moments of foggy alpine cliffs and mountain bikers on open gravel trails. She was equally captivated by photographing the natural glow of cozy indoor spaces that convey the intangible feeling of home. This background laid the groundwork for a nature-inspired collection of handmade functional ceramics in a color palette of beachy teal blues, warm autumn reds, and many natural clay pieces that bring our appreciation of the environment into our home. Jess focuses on functional work with appealing shapes that will become part of our daily routine: a warm coffee mug on your work-from-home desk, functional planters for your green thumb, and well-shaped stoneware bowls for all occasions from your best dinner parties or morning bowl of cereal.

When not in the studio experimenting with clay, Jess can be found commuting by bike in the city, tending to her house plants (Begonias, thanks for asking), and packing for her next trip to the mountains. Originally brought to Seattle as a program manager in a business career, Jess methodically planned her grand escape, jumped ship, and blazed a new path towards the life she longed to pursue as a mountaineering instructor and full-time artist. Jess chooses to not take herself too seriously and is constantly poking fun at life, leading to the wizard-cap-wearing banana slug logo stamped to every pot’s bottom (Her slow, squishy, yellow spirit animal). Navigating an uncharted career in the city, mountaineering/climbing/cycling at the mercy of the elements, and building a one-woman-owned business as a ceramic artist comes with many unexpected obstacles between who we are and who we want to be, she summarizes as “Climbing the Mountains In Between”.