Who We Are
If you've ever wrapped your hands around a Warby Tumbler or ran your fingers across the surface of one of our Bog Vessels at a market, you've experienced the ceramic art of Jessica Butala! Our resident ceramicist, Jess has been studying and practicing the art of pottery for over two decades. Depending on the piece, Jess might use wheel throwing, slab building, or slip casting, depending on the intent of the finished product. Each piece she makes for the Bog incorporates her signature hand carved surface decoration inspired by nature and folklore. Her collection of colorful, tactile ceramics includes tableware like mugs, cups & bowls; whimsical Portal Stones, hand-carved ceramic jewelry, and traditional handheld ceramic rattles.
In her day job as an industrial designer, she uses multiple materials and processes to create a unique line of products! Working with fabric in the soft goods development field allows Jessica to create her own style of functional sewn goods with an innovative twist. Offering a variety of goods from bags and accessories to home decor, she enjoys mixing quality materials to craft attractive and useful designs.
Fabric and thread know no limits in the mind of industrial sewn product developer Jen Rocket. Jen's sewing journey began with pinning and cutting shapes at the age of three, and using her mother's sewing machine at age five. Fascinated by the idea of mass production, she began to make multiples of many different projects. This set the tone for her educational path, which is an ever-ongoing blend of industrial design, entertainment design, costume design, and technical fashion design.
Jen allows her love of magic and fantasy to hold full sway in the Bog. Not only did she design one of our flagship pieces, the Shroud, she alternately delights and horrifies visitors to our booth with her otherwordly mixed-media Celestial Bog Dolls. Jen's study of runes inspires her to join forces with her twin Jessica and hand-carve all our Ceramic Rune Casting Sets. When she's not in her design studio, you'll find her searching for vintage treasures at a flea market or pampering her two tortoises and three cats.
From the costume shops of the DC metro area to the production floors of Pittsburgh, Lauren Purdum has been sewing professionally since 2001. After moving to Pittsburgh in 2012, she realized there was a service gap out there for independent artists and designers that wanted to launch innovative designs of their own, but had trouble communicating with traditional factories or ran up against "minimum" order quantities of 500 or more. From this concept, Why Sew Workshop was born in 2017. Since then, the small Why Sew team has helped artists, entrepreneurs, film producers, fashion designers and more bring their concepts from imagination to life. With a firm grounding in the realities of the industry, Lauren still maintains that manufacturers and creatives CAN and SHOULD co-exist!
Lauren's background in costume crafts brings an uncommon fearlessness and range to her stable of materials, and her primary goal as a Bog artist is to bring all the skill, playfulness, and magic from out behind the scenes in a costume shop to your fingertips. From subtly tailored soft hats inspired by historical examples, to her strange garden of Bog Blooms, Lauren's designs have a sculptural charm. Lauren's other loves are good music, bad movies, and her family; born and found.