Wheelhouse / Two potters, one kiln
Everything here was made twice.
Once on the wheel and once in the kiln, and the second one is out of our hands. Four firings a year, forty pieces a firing, and the ones that come out wrong are sold as seconds with the fault written on the label.
See what is in the next firingConcept work — fictional brand, built to demonstrate technique. Nothing is for sale.
A pot loses an eighth of itself between the wheel and the shelf. It is the same clay, the same hands and the same form, and it comes out smaller than the one you made — which is why a potter throws to a number nobody else in the room can see.
Studio pottery
Eleven seconds, at your pace
Scroll and the wheel turns. This is one pull on a 900g cylinder, filmed at twelve frames a second and encoded so that every frame is a keyframe — so the picture lands exactly where you stop, rather than catching up a moment later.
- 01CentredNine hundred grams, running true. Everything after this depends on it.
- 02OpenedA thumb down the middle to the floor, leaving eight millimetres under it.
- 03First pullThe wall comes up in one movement. Stopping halfway leaves a ridge you will feel for ever.
- 04Second pullThinner and taller. This is where most of them go out of true.
- 05CollaredThe neck brought in, which thickens the wall again and has to be pulled back out.
- 06Off the wheelCut free with a wire and left overnight before it can be touched.
It comes out smaller than you made it
Clay is thirty per cent water by the time it leaves the wheel, and almost none of that comes back. A mug thrown at 92mm across is a 79mm mug on the shelf, and a potter who wants a 90mm mug has to throw a 105mm one.
| Stage | When | Across | Tall |
|---|---|---|---|
| ThrownWet, heavy and soft enough to dent with a fingertip. | Day one | 105 | 118 |
| Bone dryWater out. Seven per cent gone and it will not come back. | Day eight | 97 | 109 |
| BisquedPorous, hard, and now impossible to break down and reuse. | Firing one1000°C | 95 | 107 |
| Glaze firedVitrified. Fourteen per cent smaller than the pot that left the wheel. | Firing two1260°C | 90 | 101 |
The glaze shelf
Nine we mix ourselves, in twenty-litre buckets, from dry materials weighed to the gram. Point at one for the recipe. Every number is a percentage of the dry weight, which is how every glaze recipe in the world is written and why none of them add up to a hundred once you add the colourant.
10 reduction
Celadon
Feldspar 35, silica 30, whiting 20, kaolin 15, red iron oxide 1.5. Breaks pale where it runs thin over an edge.
Point at a tile.
- Celadon, 10 reduction
- Feldspar 35, silica 30, whiting 20, kaolin 15, red iron oxide 1.5. Breaks pale where it runs thin over an edge.
- Tenmoku, 10 reduction
- Feldspar 50, silica 22, whiting 16, kaolin 8, red iron oxide 9. Black where it is thick, rust where it is not.
- Shino, 10 reduction
- Nepheline syenite 45, spodumene 30, ball clay 20, soda ash 5. Carbon traps if you are lucky and mud if you are not.
- Oatmeal, 9 oxidation
- Feldspar 40, silica 25, whiting 15, kaolin 15, talc 5. The safe one. Half of what leaves here wears it.
- Kaki, 10 reduction
- Iron saturate, 12% red iron oxide. Runs. Never put it within 10mm of the foot.
- Chun blue, 10 reduction
- Opalescent, not a stain: the blue is light scattering in the glaze, so it only appears where it is thick.
- Ash, 11 reduction
- Wood ash 40, feldspar 40, ball clay 20. The ash is from the neighbour who burns oak, so it changes every winter.
- Black slip, Bisque, unglazed
- Not a glaze. Applied leather-hard and burnished, then fired bare. It will mark if you cut on it.
- Bare, Unglazed exterior
- The clay body itself, sanded after firing. Glazed inside only, because a mug has to hold coffee.
The kiln
- 4
- Firings a year
- 1260°C
- Glaze temperature
- 14%
- Shrinkage, wheel to shelf
- 1 in 6
- Comes out a second
Seconds, with the fault written down
One piece in six comes out of the glaze firing with something wrong with it. None of them are thrown away and none of them are sold as firsts. The fault is on the label, the price is lower, and if it will not hold liquid we do not sell it at all.
- Mug, 300mlOatmealGlaze crawled off a thumbprint under the handle£28 → £19
- Mug, 300mlTenmokuRim out of true by 2mm — you will feel it on your lip£28 → £16
- Bowl, 180mmCeladonKiln grit fused to the foot ring, ground back flat£42 → £30
- Bowl, 180mmKakiGlaze ran and was chiselled off the shelf. Foot is rough£42 → £24
- Jug, 1LShinoCarbon trapping on one side only. Some people ask for this£64 → £48
- Plate, 240mmAshWarped 3mm — it rocks on a flat table£38 → £20
- Vase, 220mmChun blueHairline in the foot. Will not hold water. Not for sale£88 → —
The first of the month
The next firing opens on the first of the month
Forty pieces, listed at nine in the morning, and about half of them are spoken for by lunchtime. There is no waiting list and we will not hold anything back for anybody, which is the only fair way we have found to do it.
Be told when it opensConcept work — fictional brand, built to demonstrate technique. Nothing is for sale.