About Us

Lifefire pottery is a cumulative effort of Jared, aka “Spike,” Kaup and Janet Kaup.  “lifefire” is one of those “homemade words” that the we have formed because no word existed to belter-describe the magnetism that the ceramic arts had on us when we began our clay journey just a few short years ago!  Opposites may attract, but in the world of ceramics, there really is something that brings everyone together!  This is precisely the message that lifefire is attempting to bring to the world!

Pottery is one of those magical middle grounds where Spike finds function and Janet finds art and the two melt together as earth marries fire.  We have found that pottery is one of those things that the more we learn, the more we find that we have to learn as we work toward our own phd (“piled higher and deeper”) in this hands-on education that we are so fortunate to be living and breathing as we learn, grow, improve, and repeat!

Community is, unfortunately, an almost-forgotten virtue in our time-deprived world.  lifefire wishes to restore community – koinonia – in the Greek.  Koinonia refers to intimate participation.  lifefire aspires to bring such participation among open-minded individuals everywhere through classes, raku firings, and personalized gatherings.   We laugh, learn, develop methods, befriend the process of trial and error, and share our lives together.  No, we are not degree-bearing masters of this art, yet better we are slaves to the passion of lifefire…