The Petrified Forest began ten years ago when Steve Day’s six-year-old son wanted a bird feeder for the deck. They soon hammered one together out of scrap wood and a couple of pieces of window glass. It fed the birds ‘OK’, but soon fell apart from the ravages of the squirrels and the weather.

On a quest now for a material that was both chew-proof and impervious to the elements, he began experimenting with his wife’s stoneware clay.

With no formal pottery training, but a strong design sense developed while living in Japan, coupled with hands-on skills from silkscreen printmaking and metal sculpture, he created a truly unique bird feeder that became the Petrified Forest’s first product.

Over the past decade, with technical advice from his wife, Brenda, Day has created his own forming, coloring, and firing methods. He has developed a very personal, natural style; a customer once said of her birdbath, “It almost looks like something I found in the woods!”

His work has grown in scope and refinement, and is now available in over 100 craft galleries, garden centers, and museum shops across the country.

The studio is located in beautiful, rural Berks County, Pennsylvania, in a 1781 farmhouse, grist mill and barn. The surrounding 15 acres provide an ample supply of native leaves, ferns, and grasses for Steve Day and his studio assistants.