Welcome to Lost Mountain
- Mark Heimann, studio potter
Here are pictures of my house in the timberlands of western Oregon. It’s a treat to be living here, surrounded by natural beauty and able to hear the birds, raccoons, coyotes and other wild denizens add their songs and sounds to those of our goats, peacocks, cats and dogs. It’s a zoo, and we love it.
Oregon has been my home since 1981. I emigrated from Sanibel Island, Florida, where I built and operated “The Wheel”, my first clay studio and gallery. After I moved to Oregon I became certified as an advanced paramedic and was employed in the Emergency Medical Services field for ten years. I had no studio! But luck and fate guided me to Lost Mountain in 1991, and I plunged back into the world of ceramic art.
The picture on the left is a view of my studio (in mid-afternoon shadow). It's a big old pole building that I saw in a dream the night before I actually visited it for real (no kidding!) This view looks over the pen where I board three beautiful horned pack goats, raised here by Becki Riebesehl and me. They are rascals and a wonderful part of life here and on the trail.
The interior photo shows one corner of the studio, where I turn ("throw") pots and do most of my sculpting. There are separate areas for slab-work, glaze formulation and application, display of finished work, and packing/shipping. The rest of the space is filled up with an ever-changing array of kilns, clay mixers, boxes, packing materials, tools, and a collection of strange stuff and old pots that I have collected over many years here. Two cats, Kenji and Luna, live in the building and keep the mouse population under control.
My main kiln, located in a well-protected corner of the building, is a fifty cubic foot propane-fired updraft “car” kiln — its floor rolls out on rails to facilitate loading.
Most of the building is heated with a woodstove. There’s just something that attracts us potters to fire…