Clay bowls, cups, vessels and vases crowd open shelving. Some of the ceramic pieces are finished with swirling earth-toned glazes. Others await their turn in a kiln.
Buckets of home-mixed glazes line one wall from top to bottom. Ceramicist tools and art supplies fill plastic bins. Pottery wheels sit side by side, adjacent to long high-top working tables.
23C Studio is a ceramic arts cooperative tucked away in a warehouse at 23rd and C streets in Midtown. The space is dusty and rustic, open to the weather, no air conditioning and limited heating. But the studio is fully equipped for wheel throwing and hand building, creating and collaborating.
Ceramic artist Penny Leff is right at home.
Leff is a “functional” potter. She creates wheel-thrown ceramics, such as coffee cups, tumblers and bowls. Some she alters by gently beating them with various implements found around the studio.
“I’ve also been dipping my fingers in whimsy humor,” she says, where she adds an amusing sculpture, such as a dragon, atop a wheel-thrown piece.
Her free-flowing glazes speak to nature with flora-inspired browns, tans, greens and blues.
Leff is not represented in a gallery and does not sell on artisan websites. She prefers craft fairs and art shows where she can meet buyers and let them hold her work before deciding to purchase.
Leff grew up in San Francisco and spent most of her adult life in the Bay Area. Her artistic endeavors included carving soapstone and making inlaid jewelry. She began creating ceramic art when she enrolled in classes at The Potters’ Studio in Berkeley.
In 2003, she and her wife, Roberta Alvarez, moved to Davis so Leff could finish her bachelor’s degree at age 53. After graduating with a BS in agricultural economics, she worked for the University of California. That’s when she discovered the UC Davis Craft Center.
“The craft center was a 5-minute walk away” from her office, she says. “I got to do ceramics there. I took the beginning class from three different teachers and learned three different methods.”
Leff was hooked. She volunteered at the center, loading and unloading the kilns. “I developed my pottery and started selling at crafts fairs.”
In 2008, Leff and Alvarez moved to Sacramento and bought a home in Tahoe Park, where Leff still lives. Alvarez, also a ceramic artist, died of cancer in 2024.
“Roberta did all the fun things,” Leff says. “She was an artist. I was just the potter.” Leff still maintains their Facebook page, PenRa Pottery.
Leff retired in 2021. Still hooked on clay, she reached out to local ceramicist and friend Chris Thompson who started 23C Studio and invited other potters to share the space with him.
When Thompson died of a heart attack in 2022, the artists reorganized the studio as a cooperative and continued operations.
Leff is a devoted 23C Studio member. She welcomes new members, offers wheel-throwing classes and assists studio manager, Michael Sirota, with firing.
The studio has two working kilns. One is electric. “Program it, set it and leave it,” Leff says.
The other is an “old school” gas kiln and runs on propane. Reaching 2,350 degrees, the kiln must be monitored—no programing and walking away. Sirota controls the mixture of gas and oxygen using a small damper on the top of the kiln, monitoring the temperature with a pyrometer at every stage. “It’s an all-day process,” Leff says.
Leff is also past president and longtime member of Art by Fire, a local group of artists who use extreme heat to create clay, metal and glass artwork.
As a co-op, 23C Studio welcomes members with a passion for pottery. “We have some Sac State students and a contingent of nurses who come in their scrubs in late afternoons when their shift is over,” Leff says.
23C Studio is open to the public during most Second Saturday art shows and will participate in Verge Center for the Arts’ annual Sac Open Studio on Sept. 12-13. Leff will sell her ceramic creations at her Tahoe Park home during Sac Open Studio’s second weekend, Sept. 19-20.
For information on 23C Studio membership, classes and workshops, visit 23cstudio.org.
Cathryn Rakich can be reached at cathrynrakich@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
