I feel insecure every time we release a thematic issue. Each month, we offer readers four perspectives on a topic, and while that is meaningful, it never feels complete. It reveals who is included, just as sharply, who is not. It drives me mad.
For every emerging voice we publish, I feel the absence of the elders whose labor and thinking made that voice possible. For every regional focus, another equally rich geography is left unnamed. For every article that celebrates form, function, and joy, there is a silence where politics, policy, and harm should be spoken.
This tension settles in my stomach like a rock. Who was left out? Whose narrative to elevate next?
It is a practice to be held; each month I build publication maps and track authorship across the year, paying attention to who we are bringing into the conversation and how those voices speak to one another over time. No single issue can do everything, but together, over months and years, they begin to form a larger, more generous whole.
This month we feature four wood-fire artists. Though, by most measures, this is a women’s wood-firing issue, the underlying vein across these articles is lineage. Kilns as connective tissue. Each of these authors work to include, include, include more mentors, crews, shared firings. The work does not stand alone, and neither do the artists.
This issue softens the weight I carry each month. Perhaps it is not a rock at all, but the weight of holding a door open. It reminds me that when Studio Potter opens the door for authorship, those authors open doors of their own. Inclusion expands outward, carried into their communities. The circle grows wider than the pages we produce.
As we look toward 2026, this understanding guides me forward. Studio Potter will continue to hold the door open, inviting editors-at-large to bring forward voices from their communities, to honor the past, engage the present, and imagine the future. The work is ongoing, imperfect, and deeply alive. And that may be the most honest position I can hold.
Randi O'Brien, editor and executive director