About Us

Isla Clay’s jewellery designs explore the relationship between colour, image, and form. Each piece is designed and handcrafted by Martina Zalig in her studio. Bright and bold colours, black carved geometric patterns and abstract or classic yet visibly hand-cut shapes translate every piece of her ceramic jewellery into wearable art; perfect for women who enjoy discovering something special and confidently expressing their inner beauty.

All items are handmade from scratch: shapes are cut from rolled out earthenware clay, carved when leather-hard, sanded when dry, fired for the first time, glazed with eco-friendly glazes and finally fired for the second time.

Martina has always liked creating with her hands; in fact it is her first memories of drawing flowers and animals with her Gran as a 4-year-old. She can still clearly remember the day when she first felt she wanted to work with clay. It was on a sunny summer day when she was lying on a small hill on Berneray, a small island in the Outer Hebrides. It took a few years before she actually ordered a kiln and bought her first chunk of clay, but that feeling never left her.

Since then she has been on a wonderful adventure of discovering clay through books, videos and lots of hand-on exploring. She has fallen in love with the endless possibilities and techniques that working with clay brings.

In Martina's mind ceramics is strongly connected to her life in Scotland and becoming a part of that country for a decade, so she wanted to choose a Scottish name for her brand. Isla, according to Wikipedia, is a feminine given name of primarily Scottish usage, derived from Islay, which is the name of an island off the West coast of Scotland.