Watch: In The Studio with Tessy and Jon Pettyjohn

For In The Studio, renowned ceramic artists Tessy and Jon Pettyjohn reflect on their early pottery days, their local claymaking process, the lessons they’ve gathered from years of teaching, and the living tradition their students carry forward.

The Philippines has long been known for its natural fibers: piña, abaca, raffia, and other plant-based materials used in traditional textiles. But for Tessy and Jon Pettyjohn, the most prized resource is mixed with the soil: clay they’ve learned to collect and prepare themselves, along with ash gathered from volcanic eruptions or burnt fruit trees on the roadside. During their travels around the country, they carry a shovel and sack for these very moments.

“If we see an outcropping where it looks like interesting clay, we both will go out of our way to get a sample,” Jon says. “Being a potter is like being a farmer… It’s just you have to be there.”

In this episode of In The Studio, the couple talks to Vogue Philippines about their daily pottery practice, tried and tested over their four-decade careers; their early morning rituals, such as rising at 6 A.M. to meditate and play guitar before breakfast; and the larger story reflected in their space, where handmade vessels occupy every corner. Some are their own creations, but equal in number are the gifts received from friends and former students, a tangible record of the Philippine ceramics community that they have shaped since the ‘80s.

Back then, a small group of pupils would gather at their home in Pansol, Laguna. But the number grew as classes progressed, prompting the duo to expand to a workshop in Alabang and later in Makati. Students ranged from nine-year-olds to working individuals in their thirties, and as the ceramicists embraced their roles as pioneer mentors, they not only witnessed the local pottery scene grow, but also their apprentices grow up.

“Eventually they opened their own shops. There’s even a second, a third generation,” Jon remarks. “There’s this kind of thinking, the secrets of glaze making and claymaking. But it’s wrong. The more you share, the more it comes back.”

While the two have since retired from teaching, they continue to appear at events like Art Fair Philippines and Art in the Park, where they connect with emerging artists and enthusiasts, whose questions bring back memories.

Raised in the age of the analog, Tessy and Jon first met in 1978 at Sining Kamalig, a former gallery and the venue of Jon’s debut exhibit. On their first impressions of each other, Tessy recalls thinking he was “suplado (snooty)” and laughs. “It was just fear,” Jon admits, smiling as he recounts getting her phone number. Soon, the two bonded over a shared love for high fire ceramics, which Tessy picked up from a professor at UP Diliman and Jon learned from a Spanish artisan in Barcelona.

It’s possible the two could have crossed paths earlier (they were both students of The New School in 1969, a fact Jon shares with disbelief), but there’s something to be said about waiting, a habit that potters are compelled to hone. Inside the couple’s home at the foot of Mount Makiling, and up the stairs that lead to their workshop and anagama (cave kiln), they explain that patience and consistency are key to their routine.

“When you’re on the wheel trying to center, it’s like you’re centering yourself,” Tessy says, reflecting on the presence of the craft. “You’re not thinking, you’re just doing it.”

For the duo, trust and technical skill work hand in hand, but the process still involves making room for mistakes. Jon mentions a spot behind the workshop where a pile of shards form the pieces he dislikes. The reality of his “rejects” doesn’t bother him, and he and Tessy encourage new potters to embrace this ethos; to set aside the idea of mastery and see that failure is a necessary state, as natural and recurring as the earth.

“As teachers, we’ve also witnessed people who struggle. And I think those people might be more likely to produce something interesting because they paid for it,” he comments. “You have to do it again and again,” Tessy adds. “And up to now, we’re still learning.”

Between caring for three dogs and a plump brown cat, the couple also looks back on 47 years of marriage, surrounded by pieces of analog days past (from earthenware clocks to the kiln’s heat-gauging pyrometric cones) and creations by kin: little clay pets their daughters sculpted as children, and colorful chalk drawings of suns and hearts, made by their granddaughters across the garden’s concrete steps.

There is a feeling of ease at the end of each day, as the work of a potter belongs to a much larger world; a collaboration with nature that stems from centuries of human tradition. As family and community grow, the veteran ceramicists find happiness in returning that act, passing it down, until it becomes something you can hold in your hands.

Watch the full episode of “In The Studio with Ceramic Artists Tessy and Jon Pettyjohn” below.

Media Channels Editor: Anz Hizon. Cinematographers: Ken Tan and Gerald Bustarde of Chapters PH. Video editor: Zyhra Rivero of Chapters PH. Media Channels Producer: Angelo Tantuico. Media Channels Video Editor: Wainah Joson. Chapters PH Team: Liah Barra, Lyka Estanislao, Mark Penalosa, Patrick Juarez. Interview and introduction by Aylli Cortez.