Liz Aldag's ceramics bring a lot to the table

Jan 24, 2024

Editorial Intern

There is an easy elegance to each of Liz Aldag's handmade ceramic pieces — whether a mug, a tray, a vase, or a candlestick holder. With a style that tends toward clean lines, simple patterns and colors plucked from the palette of a Pinterest daydream (think: dusty pink, slate blue, pale pistachio green), this local ceramic artist proves the old adage: less is more.

"I make things that I think are beautiful and functional," says Aldag. "Most of my work is meant to be used, whether it's on your table or for your plants. I try to create things that I want around me, and I hope that people feel the same way."

Going with her gut has proven itself as a business strategy. Aldag's Etsy shop, The Lulu Bird (soon to be "Liz Aldag Ceramics," her current business name) has been featured in hot lists and shopping guides in Real Simple magazine, Refinery29 and HuffPost. Her personalized pet bowls made it into a national television ad for Etsy in 2019 — plus, just this month, her Mama Bird mug was selected for Etsy's Mother's Day gift guide.

While Aldag credits the publications to "luck," it's more than likely that her unique aesthetic, instincts and years of experience honing her craft helped, too. She started pottery as a sophomore at Madison West High School, where she learned from Don Hunt, a local ceramics legend. With Hunt as a mentor, she got early experience with advanced techniques.

"It was really special," Aldag remembers fondly. Despite her passion for creating pottery, Aldag never envisioned that it would become her career.

"I grew up thinking that being an artist was an unobtainable, kind of silly pipe dream," she admits. When she went to college, she channeled her talents into what she thought was a more "practical" field: Art therapy. After earning her masters from the Art Institute of Chicago, she moved to Durham, North Carolina to work at Duke Children's Hospital.

Luckily for Aldag (and her many, many customers) her new home led her back to an old passion. Unbeknownst to most, the largest concentration of working potters in the United States is nestled in that region of North Carolina. Surrounded by rich traditions, rich community and incredibly rich clay resources, Aldag started taking classes at a local studio. Taking classes led to selling pieces locally, and then to creating a website. For the next seven years, Aldag juggled her career as an art therapist and her blossoming pottery business.

"I was at the point where I was rushing home from work to get to the studio, or waking up early to package," says Aldag. "I was running myself ragged and thinking that [this business] couldn't be my real career. And it took me a while to get over that in my own head."

A year and a half ago, she did. In 2021, she moved back to Madison and committed herself full-time to her business. While she has retained a strong base of online customers, she hopes to become more settled in the Madison art and pottery community.

"I think having community — rootedness — does feel important," says Aldag, thoughtfully.

Finding her people goes for customers, too. Aldag knows that she can't appeal to everyone in a world where anyone can buy, for example, a mass-produced mug with the latest trendy shape or logo for under $10.

"If someone comes to me and they say, ‘Well, I can get a mug for $5,’ then I know that person probably isn't my customer," Aldag says. "That probably isn't the person who's going to appreciate the beauty of an heirloom piece of pottery."

Or the work that goes into it.

A piece like a mug — something most of us take for granted on our table — takes days to create. Each of Aldag's mugs (like the ever-popular cloud mug) starts with a pound and a quarter of clay. This portion is prepped by kneading ("wedging," for those eager to learn the lingo) before the clay can be shaped on the wheel. After a day or two of drying, the handle can be attached. Three more days pass before the mug is ready to be fired for the first time, which takes a full day, and then another day to cool. To create the mug's design, Aldag paints it in wax, which dries overnight, and then adds a colored glaze (Aldag mixes her own). Finally, the mug is fired (again) and cools (again).

Liz Aldag works at her pottery wheel.

And that doesn't even factor in steps like photographing, editing, packaging, or shipping. It's an intensive process to create something as seemingly simple as a mug. Aldag cherishes the dailiness of her pieces, which are made to be used, to be loved and to last.

"I really like that my pieces are a part of people's mornings, or their rituals," she says, her eyes lighting up. "Their nighttime tea or their morning coffee. Those things are so special to be a part of."

Aldag draws from TV shows, poetry, music and even political events (like this speckled RESIST mug) to come up with new designs. To balance her creative urges and her consumer demands, she includes a few "experiments" alongside her tried-and-true designs in each kiln load.

Each piece reflects Aldag's unique journey — and her own "roots."

"I feel like I have so much that I’ve pulled and learned from my time in North Carolina," says Aldag, who still uses clay from the region for her pottery. "But it all comes back to my time in Madison…and to Mr. Hunt."

Anna Kottakis is an editorial intern at Madison Magazine.

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