Entrepreneur Spotlight: Kristy Lombard

It starts with a slab of clay. All flattened out. A hand-carved stamp is rolled across the clay and leaves a pattern of texture. And then, it’s ready. Ready to be folded and shaped into a unique ceramic piece.

Slab building is a ceramic technique that is created purely by hand without the use of a potter’s wheel. Kristy Lombard gravitated towards this style of ceramics because of the process.

“I like to build things and slab building works that way,” she said. “It’s the exact same thing as sewing: cutting out things and putting them together to building something.” Kristy originally started working with clay in high school like a lot of her classmates. “I went off to college and had no idea what I wanted to do,” she said. “I end up declaring in art.”

While at the University of Oregon, Kristy taught herself the basic skills of slab building and found she preferred it over throwing clay on a wheel. “The way I work with my stamps, you can’t do as cleanly on a wheel,” she said. A year out of college, Kristy found herself teaching pottery classes for Georgie’s Ceramic & Clay Company, and then transitioned to full-time making and selling.

“I’ve kept going wherever the path took me,” she said. “It just kept working and working.” 

After spending years in the Portland area, Kristy opened her current storefront on Main Avenue in Tillamook in 2018.

In her shop you’ll find mugs, ceramic jewelry, vases, and the very popular tiny houses. “I have a lot of ideas and different lines of work,” Kristy said. “I’m such a tactile person that I use a lot of texture.”

Her tile work was also used in a shower niche in a Lot 35 Homes bathroom remodel. “They wanted something very representative of Oregon,” Kristy said. “That’s a lot of what my work is because I’ve lived in Oregon my whole life and it’s hard not to be inspired by all the things around us.”

Kristy Lombard Pottery can be found at 115 Main Ave #1, Tillamook. Call ahead for gallery hours and restrictions: 503-753-3490. Ceramics can also be purchased online at www.kristylombard.com.

By Chelsea Yarnell