Happs Pottery

Happs Pottery is a working studio and showroom on Caves Road at Anniebrook, about 10 km from Dunsborough on the Busselton side. The owners live on the site too, so the plates and mugs on the showroom shelves are made a few steps away.

The potter, Myles Happ, has potted since childhood and says he has nearly 30 years of stoneware behind him, most of it reduction fired. In a reduction firing the kiln is run short of oxygen, and the glazes come out differently for it: copper, which fires green in an ordinary firing, turns red. He runs the pottery with Jacquie, who makes pieces too.

Every plate starts in a mould. It is pressed, then trimmed, glazed and finished by hand. The mugs are thrown on the wheel. It is all made for daily use, and the maker says the pottery is dishwasher, oven and microwave safe.

Several Happs glazes carry coastal names: Bunker Bay, Wyadup Stone, Shorebreak and Shelly Beach. In 2023 Myles took a glazing course, and new glazes followed. Desert Day, a red and dark glaze made with copper red, tenmoku and chun, was developed with the glaze experimenter David Thomson.

Other artists show there too, among them Justin Webb (metal sculpture) and Ellen Trott. Myles and the team run wheel-throwing sessions for small groups in the studio, and the business takes on corporate gifts at scale: the maker mentions single orders of 7,200 and 7,500 gifts.

Buy from the maker's online shop, or call in at the studio and showroom on Caves Road, where visitors are welcome. Check the maker's site for opening times before you go.