Est. McMurray, Pennsylvania
Vessels for
the sacred
ordinary.
Heirloom Christian ceramics — holy water fonts, devotional stoups, and altar pieces — pressed, glazed, and fired by hand in the studio of Monica Rutherford.
"Each piece is shaped slowly — pressed with antique lace, marked with the cross, glazed in the colors of stained glass and old reliquaries. They are made to be lived with, blessed, and passed on."
— Monica Rutherford, Maker
The Atelier
Made by hand, made with prayer.
Sacred By Design is the studio of Monica Rutherford, a Pennsylvania ceramicist whose work draws from Catholic devotional tradition, old European folk art, and the quiet language of inherited objects.
Every font, stoup, and reliquary is wheel-thrown or slab-built, pressed with antique lace and hand-carved seals, then fired in small kiln loads from her studio in McMurray.
A Quiet Promise
God will always be with you.
Every piece that leaves this studio is meant to carry a single, steady truth — that you are not alone. In the kitchen, by the door, beside the bed of a child: a small font of holy water, a dove with gilded wings, a Madonna pressed into clay. These are reminders for the ordinary hours.
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid… for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." That promise is what we try to shape into every basin, every blessing, every stamped letter.
From the City of Bridges
Made just outside Pittsburgh.
The studio sits in McMurray, a short drive south of Pittsburgh — a city of three rivers, four hundred and forty-six bridges, and steeples on nearly every hilltop. It is a city built by steel workers and coal miners, immigrants from Poland, Italy, Croatia, and Ireland, who carried their saints with them and built churches before they built their own homes.
That heritage is everywhere in this work: the Eastern European lace pressed into wet clay, the Polish hill churches above the Monongahela, the small Italian shrines on neighborhood corners, the gilded onion domes of the South Side. Sacred By Design is shaped by Pittsburgh — by its faith, its working hands, and its quiet, prayerful neighborhoods.