A Burned-Out Graphic Designer Found Her Way Back Through Clay – and a Pit Fire in Texas

Alexandria Roby is a contemporary ceramic artist in Canyon Lake, Texas, who makes one-of-a-kind vessels inspired by the organic textures and colors of the natural world, under the name Alex Roby Design. She worked as a graphic designer for about a decade, quit a tech startup job after serious burnout, and found the spark again in a ceramics class in Seattle.

Alexandria throws pieces on the wheel and hand-builds larger sculptural vessels in multiple phases, carving deep textures into their surfaces. She layers sodium silicate and slip over a contrasting clay body and uses found rocks, tree bark and shells for texture. Her current fixation is atmospheric firing without an electric kiln – wood firing, an anagama in Japan, and now pit firing in Texas – so no surface can be exactly replicated.

Alexandria accepts custom orders for pieces that align with work she has made before, and is open to slight modifications or ideas from the client. Commissions typically take 4 to 8 weeks, depending on the piece and quantity, and can be requested through the contact form on her website. She ships internationally. She hasn’t yet worked directly with interior designers – she calls that her next step.

Alexandria sells mostly to repeat customers who have followed her since the beginning, through international online galleries – she is represented by Galerie Philia, Homo Faber and Adorno Design – and through email and organic website traffic. A few local stores in Seattle, including Plantify, Shop Atria and Glasswing, also bring in a lot of her sales. Her earliest customers came from in-person markets in Seattle.

After leaving her job, Alexandria took a ceramics class in Seattle. She had taken two semesters of ceramics in college and always remembered wanting to return to the medium. In that class, she finally felt the spark – and knew this was what she had been longing for.

Before that, she had worked as a graphic designer for about a decade. She quit a job at a tech startup because of serious burnout. Her creativity felt like it had run dry, she didn’t feel appreciated for the work she did, and neither the work nor what she was working toward aligned with her view of the world. “It was exhausting.” After quitting, she slowly tested the waters with a few different mediums, all in an attempt to regain her creative momentum.

“I loved the medium and the way it allowed me to feel connected to myself again.”

Alexandria still uses manufactured and locally sourced clays, but she has slowly begun experimenting more with wild clay for glazes, slip detailing and other applications. Her current fixation is atmospheric firing, where the surface decoration of each piece is determined by the organic materials that come into contact with it. These firings are done without an electric kiln and are quite labor-intensive.

She has done many wood firings, where wood ash fuses to the clay body and creates unique coloration. She began this style of work in Seattle and continued it during a residency in Japan, firing in an anagama, a traditional Japanese wood-fired kiln. After a residency in Peru, she fell in love with pit firing – and now creates whole collections with it, because she can pit fire far more often where she lives.

The resulting hues range from dark charcoals to light grays and beiges. With each style of firing, the surfaces can never be exactly replicated, so every piece stays one of a kind. “I love the interplay between my contemporary forms and ancient firing techniques, creating something new that still feels deeply connected to the lineages of makers who came before us.”

A signature of her work is depth: texture, material exploration and earthy hues. She uses techniques such as sodium silicate application, along with found materials like rocks, tree bark and shells, to create varied textures and surface details. What matters most to her is that each piece evokes a sense of calm and a greater connection to the elements and the natural world.

These are some of Alexandria’s most recent works. For the wheel-thrown pieces, she uses sodium silicate and slip overlaid on a contrasting clay body to achieve the texture. The gray-toned pieces are all from her most recent pit-fire collection. The larger sculptural vessels are hand-built in multiple phases and hand-carved to create the deep textures across their surfaces. Photos: Alexandria Roby; the cover photo and the row of vessels on the table by Mariel Torres.

Some of Alexandria’s customers have supported her since the beginning. “It is an honor to see them continue to follow my work through the many shifts in my practice over the years.” A few ceramic enthusiasts have become collectors, and she shares sneak peeks of new pieces with them before they are released. Several international online galleries connect her work with collectors around the world, and she ships internationally.

Her pieces are made as one-of-a-kind, standalone works, often displayed in entryways, dining rooms or as centerpieces in living spaces. Prices range from $200 to $3,000.

Her earliest customers came from in-person markets in Seattle. At the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, she started shifting her business from in-person markets to online sales and retail partnerships.

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Today most of Alexandria’s sales come from repeat customers, online galleries, email marketing and organic website traffic. She is represented by Galerie Philia, Homo Faber and Adorno Design. Local stores matter too: she has consistently worked with a few in Seattle – Plantify, Shop Atria and Glasswing – and they bring in a lot of her sales.

“Everything about running your own business becomes trial and error.” Plenty of the markets she joined in the early stages didn’t align with her work. She moved from local markets to higher-end ones, but once she really defined her style, she realized her work belonged in a different category. From there, she began reaching out to online galleries and building connections within the art scene.

A major shift came when Alexandria took an eight-month pause for back-to-back residencies in 2025: Blanca, Spain, in May and June; San Roque, Peru, in August; and Onishi, Japan, in October and November. The time let her reflect on the long-term vision for her business, on what mattered most in making her work, and on the practices she wanted to bring in to deepen her connection to the art and the material. She learned skills from artisans and cultures along the way, and they still show up in subtle ways in each new collection.

Between residencies, she stayed at her parents’ property on a lake in Texas. She had sold all of her belongings and put her things in storage, so their home became the place where she could create new collections. She set up a studio there and began pit firing on the property after falling in love with the technique in Peru.

She hasn’t worked directly with interior designers yet. “This is the next step for me.”

Who: Alexandria Roby (Alex Roby Design)
What: Hand-crafted contemporary ceramics inspired by organic textures and colors of the natural world
Where: Canyon Lake, Texas, USA
Started: September 2022
Audience: 7,500 Instagram followers, about 1,000 organic website views a month
Price range: $200–$3,000
Custom orders: Yes
Ships: Worldwide
Works with designers: Open to it
Channels: Word of Mouth & Offline, Your Own Newsletter, Search & AI Traffic