Fiess originally trained as a graphic designer, which explains his eye for color and his obsession with bringing the poppiness of a print to clay. Shown here is a drawer full of tests Fiess did using something called an engobe, which is somewhere between a clay and a glaze. “It doesn’t melt like a glaze, but it’s vitreous like one. The reason I went that route is I wanted the brushstrokes to remain evident on the outside of the jars. A typical glaze is going to glass over, and you’re not going to get that evidence of how it was applied.”