Jim Rigby Studio Pottery — Heart-Pierced Two-Tone Stoneware Votive / Small Planter, Signed

Some pieces you pick up and just hold for a minute before you decide anything. This is one of those. It's small — about three inches all around — hand-thrown on the wheel, with the throwing rings still right there in the lower body where the potter's fingers ran up the wet clay. That part is left raw: a tan, buff-speckled stoneware with dark flecks scattered through it. The speckle is meant to be there. So is everything else about this piece. Around the top sits a band of soft slate blue-grey glaze that pours down over the tan and drips a little down the front. A potter who didn't want that would have wiped it back. This one let it run, because that's the look — two clays, two tones, one quiet line where they meet. And through that upper band, cut straight through the wall by hand, are little open hearts. Set a tealight down inside and the light comes through them. It's a luminary. Empty it out and tuck in a succulent or an air plant, and it's a small planter instead. It does both honestly. The base carries an incised signature: Jim Rigby, in the potter's own hand — James Franklin Rigby Sr. (1942–2025), of Newport News, Virginia. By his obituary he was a potter for more than thirty years, a maker who threw and demonstrated his craft for decades — including at the Newport News Fall Festival, where he showed his work for over thirty years — before he passed in 2025. Signed Rigby pieces still turn up in the resale market, found one at a time by people who notice them. It's hard not to notice that someone sat at a wheel for a working lifetime and still carved hearts into a thing this small — and that someone else kept it. That tends to say what needs saying. Details

• Maker: Signed Jim Rigby on the base, incised by hand. James Franklin Rigby Sr. (1942–2025) was a Newport News, Virginia potter of more than thirty years who threw and demonstrated his craft for decades — including at the Newport News Fall Festival for over thirty years; he passed in 2025.
• Form: Hand-thrown, hand-carved studio pottery — a barrel/egg-shaped vessel, roughly 3 x 3 inches
• Carving: Open heart cutouts pierced straight through the upper wall, so candlelight glows through them
• Glaze & body: Soft slate blue-grey glaze over a raw tan speckled stoneware body, with intentional glaze drips — studio character, not flaws
• Use: Doubles as a votive / tealight luminary or a small planter for a succulent, air plant, or herb start
• Provenance: From a North Carolina estate

Condition: Excellent. The rim is clean and intact, the pierced hearts are clean-edged, the body and base are sound, and the signature is crisp. No chips, cracks, or repairs. The blue-over-tan two-tone, the glaze drip, and the dark speckle are all intentional studio effects.