One harbour master. Also the potter, the kiln crew and the population.

Thomas grew up in Vienna, about as far from the sea as a European capital gets. He learned to throw in a Tuesday night class in Ottakring in 2016 and never really left the wheel.

Before clay he spent eight years as a sound engineer, which is why he still taps every finished pot and listens to it. A good firing rings. A bad one goes thunk, and it doesn’t leave the island.

He works from a courtyard studio off Zollergasse in the seventh district, which he shares with a bookbinder, a secondhand kiln called Big Ernst, and a studio lizard with firm views about the heat lamp.

He makes things to be used every day and held with both hands: cups, bowls, platters, the occasional lamp base when someone asks nicely. Most of it is glazed some shade of blue. None of it has ever seen the sea.