by George Cassidy Payne
photos by Mark Stash
On an unseasonably warm March morning, I set up my laptop in the workshop of Wizard of Clay, a studio shaping both clay and community for more than 40 years. Across the room, Jamie Kozlowski tuned skis with the same meticulous attention he brings to the wheel. A master skier with a quiet passion for the sport, he moves through his work with a patient, grounded ease that seems woven into the air of the studio.
Watching Jamie is a lesson in care. Every curve, adjustment and deliberate motion is a conversation with craft. But it’s not just skill that impresses – it’s the way he carries the Finger Lakes into everything he does, most vividly in his signature Bristoleaf line.
Known to many as Wizard II, Jamie joined his father, James Edwin Kozlowski (Wizard I), full-time in 1994. His path to pottery was far from direct. The summer of 1993 found him ski bumming in Salt Lake City, bartending while the chef planned to buy and reopen the restaurant where he worked. The plan was that he would stay on once the deal went through. That summer, he spent a lot of time wondering what was going to happen. In the end, the deal fell through. That was his fork-in-the-road moment, the point where one path closed and another, unexpected journey began.
Perfecting an art
Returning east, Jamie joined the family business, starting with equipment repair. After fixing a potter’s wheel, he made a pot “for kicks.” He liked it. “The next day, I told my dad I’d like to try doing this for real,” he said.
“My dad taught me as much as he could: making glazes, firing the kiln, mopping the floor, throwing at the wheel,” Jamie continued. “I developed patience and a mindset for the work. I had to learn how to make my fingers do the thing. Being a bit of a perfectionist helps at the wheel. You start with the basics, practice them over and over, and learn again. You have to go to the edge of failure – sometimes past it, sometimes right to it.
“I like the consistency. I can make the same piece 60 times, each one precise. Some beginner potters want to make something big, fun, weird or arcane. I want to replicate the same piece again and again, and do it with the same high level of craftsmanship every time.
“Perfect practice makes perfect. The best guitar players practice all of the scales – they know every note. If you accept less in practice, that is exactly what you will get.”
Using tens of thousands of pounds of clay each year, Jamie shapes wares in the ancient pottery tradition, while skilled assistants add finishing touches. Clay, he explained, is alive under the hands, each type with its own personality; sometimes it’s springy like pizza dough, sometimes it’s dense and cool. Some clay is manufactured, formulated with stains, metallic oxides, manganese, silica, feldspar or grog and sand to give it specific textures and firing properties. Other clay comes straight from the ground, raw and earthy, carrying the fingerprint of the land itself. Working with it requires listening as much as shaping – understanding how it stretches, folds and responds to touch is as essential as any technical skill.
The process begins with wedging and kneading the clay into uniformity. On the wheel or through hand-building, forms emerge slowly, guided by gravity, touch and instinct. As it dries to a leather-hard state, it reveals opportunities for carving, joining or refinement. A first bisque firing transforms fragile clay into hardened form, still receptive to colors, textures and sheen of glaze. Each glaze, brushed or poured, is a conversation with the surface. The final firing fuses them into a durable, luminous object. From raw earth to finished piece, the work is both technical and alive, a dialogue between maker, material and flame.
Despite the scale – more than 17,000 pieces a year – the work never feels mechanical. Only about 10 percent of sales happen online; most visitors come in person, drawn by the studio’s reputation. A pin map on the wall shows the origins of guests. The first map overflowed so quickly that additional maps were needed, a tangible testament to Wizard of Clay’s reach.
The studio
The story begins in Buffalo in 1944, where James Edwin Kozlowski was born. After earning degrees in art education, he taught junior and senior high students in Greece, NY, while making pottery in his basement. Seeking space for a workshop and retail area, Jim and his wife, Lois, moved to Bristol.
Drawing on his college exposure to geodesic domes – popularized by Buckminster Fuller, the American architect, inventor, and futurist – Jim designed and built a complex of four domes by hand, even practicing the geometry with Tinker Toys on the kitchen table before construction began.
There is a quiet symmetry to the place. Fuller’s domes rely on repeating triangles that distribute weight evenly across a curved structure, a geometry that turns strength into elegance. Inside the studio, a similar rhythm unfolds at the potter’s wheel, where circular motion and careful pressure transform raw clay into form. Both the domes and the pottery share the same underlying principle: Simple shapes, repeated with patience and precision, become something enduring.
The domes were a hit right from the start, and they remain one of the most recognizable features of Wizard of Clay today, a distinctive blend of artistic imagination and practical craftsmanship. Wizard of Clay opened in October 1979, quickly earning a reputation for Bristoleaf designs – functional pottery impressed with leaves gathered from the surrounding hills of the Finger Lakes. Each imprint is unique, thus producing limited, collectible pieces that are lead-free, ovenproof, microwaveable and dishwasher safe. Crystalline porcelain vases, produced through long, controlled firings, can fetch thousands, turning each one into a singular work of art.
Jamie takes on high-end custom commissions. He has created a set of six crystalline sinks priced at $6,000, along with lamp sets, dinnerware collections and other bespoke pieces. Each involves a labor-intensive firing process where crystalline patterns bloom uniquely in the kiln.
Yet despite this range of premium work, he treasures the everyday objects: mugs, spoon rests and small plates. “If people can hold a piece of Finger Lakes artistry in their hands for under $20, then I’ve done my job,” he said.
Walking through the studio, you feel the Finger Lakes pressed into the shelves: sunlight filtering through trees, crisp early-spring air, quiet patience mirrored in clay. “I want people to feel a connection, something familiar but timeless,” Jamie said. “Every leaf is different, just like the landscape it comes from. That uniqueness is what makes it special.”
Visitors take home more than pottery. They bring home a tactile memory of place.
A craft community
Next door, the Noble Shepherd Brewery nods to the studio’s playful spirit. In 2019, the brewery celebrated Wizard of Clay’s 40th anniversary with a special brew made from hops grown on the pottery property.
Jamie handed me a set of “Eggel Bakers” before I left – a small, circular piece about the size of a bagel. Crack an egg, scramble, add ingredients, microwave for a couple of minutes. It’s a tangible piece of Wizard of Clay creativity to bring home.
For Jamie, the work is as much about preservation and connection as creation.
“People can label me as they wish,” he stated. “I am not actually all that passionate about pottery. I am passionate about keeping my store open. This place is the best I have ever known. It has always been good to me. I do not want to leave. I do not want to retire. I want to do this for as long as I can. I am 57 in a pain-free body.”
Each leaf imprint carries a story: of forests and fields in the Finger Lakes, of visitors who return year after year, of a family legacy built one careful turn of the wheel at a time. “Everything that we do, every choice that we make, it brings us to this moment that we are in right now,” Jamie reflected.
At Wizard of Clay, the rhythm continues. The wheel turns, the kiln glows, the hills outside offer their quiet patterns in leaf and light. What begins as earth in the hands becomes something lasting: a cup, a bowl, a small piece of the Finger Lakes carried home.
Visit Wizard of Clay at 7851 State Route 20A in Bloomfield. The workshop is open to the public, offering visitors a chance to see pottery being made, browse the Bristoleaf collection and experience the creative energy that has made this Finger Lakes destination a local treasure.
