From clay to kiln: a week in the studio

Customers sometimes ask why a hand-thrown planter costs what it does, when "it only takes ten minutes on the wheel". The throwing does take ten minutes. The pot takes ten days. Here is where the time goes.

Monday: wedging and throwing

Clay comes out of the bag with air pockets and uneven moisture. We wedge it by hand, kneading like bread, for a few minutes per ball, until it is the same all the way through. Then it goes on the wheel: centring, opening, pulling up the walls. That is the part people film.

Tuesday to Thursday: leather hard and trimming

A freshly thrown pot is too soft to touch. It dries slowly under plastic until it is "leather hard", firm but still cool and damp. Then we turn it upside down, trim the foot on the wheel, and cut the drainage hole.¹ Handles, lips and textures go on now too.

Friday to Sunday: drying

Then the pot dries completely, slowly, away from draughts. Uneven drying is the main cause of cracks, so thick bases dry upside down. By the end the clay is pale and fragile: "bone dry", and one knock will break it.

Bisque firing

The first firing, to about 1000 °C, takes a day to heat and a day to cool. It turns clay into ceramic: still porous, but hard enough to handle and glaze. We fire about forty pieces at a time; one kiln load is about a week of throwing.

Clay remembers everything. A bump on Monday is a crack on Friday.

Glaze and the second firing

Every piece is waxed on the foot, dipped or poured, and cleaned. The glaze firing goes to 1240 °C and then cools for over a day, with the kiln closed; opening it early can crack the glaze with the sudden cold. Opening the kiln is the best morning of the week, and occasionally the worst.

So: ten minutes on the wheel, ten days in total, two firings, and a few pots that do not make it. That is what you are holding.