I've been receiving a lot of custom orders lately, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to chat about the process of pottery.
In a 'production' setting pieces are made from a mold, which means 100, 1000 or even 10,000 of the same piece can be produced rapidly.
In a bespoke, handmade or one of a kind situation (like mine) each and every piece must go through a process. And that process is not for the faint hearted!
1. Once we have the clay in our hands (I will create another long blog post on how we even get to this stage) we throw / create the clay into our desired piece, aka Greenware.
2. The Greenware is left to dry (in winter a good week or more ) and then bisque fired in the kiln up to approx. 1000c.
3. We then trim (fuss up or make the piece functional) the bisque fired piece to have it ready for glazing - dipping, brushing, spraying - or left unglazed even!
4. The glazed piece is then put back into the kiln for glaze firing (and there are many options in this temperature range).
5. The final piece that evolves from the glaze firing is hopefully the piece we, the maker, had in mind. Often it still needs refining.
There are a lot of other factors and processes involved in making ceramics, but I thought it would be helpful to explain how we manage to turn a lump of clay into a piece you love.
They say patience is a must in pottery, I'd add resilience to that as well!
Teresa x