Welcome to Lost Mountain!

Functional and Sculptural Claywork

Mark Heimann, Studio Potter

These pictures indicate the variety of my work -

Oriental Influence, Cultural Crosscurrents, Wild and Weird, Quicksilver’s Pirate Pots.

The Compass Rose symbolizes inspiration from all directions of travel and observation.

Click on the graphic and title at the top of the page to be taken directly to more photos in each category. Graphic indexes appear on all pages for ease of site navigation. At the bottom of each page you will find other categories, including a calendar of events and shows, links, new work, and adventures. 

Here begins a tour of Lost Mountain Studios, starting with two photos of my home in NW Oregon.

It’s a privilege to live here, in the midst of tall Fir and Cedar trees, and be able to hear the wild songs
of the ravens, owls, coyotes, jays, and a myriad of other birds and critters.

To this chorus is added the domestic songs and sounds of goats, peacocks, chickens, cats, and dogs.

It’s a zoo! Something different every day…
And yes, the sun does shine here sometimes!

Oregon has been my home since 1981. I emigrated from Sanibel Island, Florida, where I 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. Luck and fate guided me to Lost Mountain in 1991, and I plunged back into the world of ceramic art.

My studio is a 40 x 60 pole building that I saw in a dream the night before I first visited Lost Mountain (no kidding!).

The view is across Puck & Draco's paddock - two young Alpines that may have a future as pack goats. They are rascals and a wonderful part of  life here.

I have four laying hens, free range during the day, predator-secure at night. They provide enough eggs to keep me cackling.

My beautiful Aussie/Pyrenees dog Akira guards the whole compound. Me pirate mates nicknamed her Sidearm, since she stays so close to me.

Two cats try to keep the rodent population at bay. It’s life in the country, and quite peaceful (unless the peacocks are screaming).

The interior photo above shows one corner of my studio, where I turn ("throw") pots and do most of my sculpting, slip-trailing, and carving.

As you can see, it’s also a huge 3-D bulletin board – notes, pictures, favorite flotsam and jetsam, bottles, skulls, and other memorabilia fill the shelves and walls.

The studio has separate corners and rooms for slab and extruder work, glaze formulation and application, display space, and packing/shipping. Plus a large "throne room" where all the miscellaneous stuff gets thrown.

I am currently installing a heavy-duty Skutt kiln so that I can experiment with mid-range electric firings and glaze techniques.

The rest of this multi-use building is filled with an ever-changing array of equipment, boxes, packing materials, tools, and an assortment of strange stuff that I have collected over the years. I have just completed (well, almostly) a new gallery space ~ comfortable and well-lit, easy to heat, and relatively dust-free.

My main kiln, pictured above, roaring at the end of a glaze firing, is located in a well-insulated corner of the building.
It has fifty cubic feet of stacking space: room for a lot of pots, big and small.
Many firings have contained over two hundred pieces. 

Tech-talk: It’s a propane-fired updraft "car" kiln. "Car kiln" means that its floor rolls out on rails to facilitate loading.
 "Updraft" means that the fifteen burners blast into the kiln from under the floor, and the generated heat and flame flows upward through the layers of pots and out the twin flues.

The throwing, slab-building, and sculpting area of the studio is heated with a woodstove. There’s just something that attracts us potters to fire…

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