Sasha Polonko, founder of Girl Pots, is a 25-year-old ceramic artist located on Whidbey Island, specializing in creating pots from locally sourced materials. Sasha’s love of clay started when she was very little and grew into an all-consuming passion as an adult, which has afforded her opportunities to practice the craft all over the world.

 

Amidst apprenticing with master potters in her early career, Sasha began to explore side-projects where she harvested wild clay for her pots and foraged fauna from the surrounding area for the creation of her glazes. Sasha’s work is always centered around how she can bring more of the natural environment that inspires her into her ceramic art, whether that be through form and expression or through the materials she uses. Sasha has completed residencies in Tuscany, Italy and apprenticeships in rural Latvia where she has explored and researched how to bring modern ceramics back to its ancient roots by foraging her own materials for pottery production.

 

Sasha aims to democratize the pottery process by encouraging the use of materials found in your own backyard; and in her case, here on Whidbey Island, to create functional and beautiful ceramic art.