More New Wheels, Glaze Making, Our First Kiln Firing and... Just One Week To Go Until Our Open House!

It has been a very busy week here at the Staunton Clayground! We have been working like mad trying to get everything ready for our Open House next weekend and first classes after that, which we are so excited about! (Don’t forget, our very first “Intro to Clay” class starts on Monday, April 22, and there are still spots available! More on that below.)

Let’s clay!

First off, we unboxed and set up our new member wheels, a Shimpo Whisper and a Speedball Clay Boss. They have larger wheel heads (14”) and can handle more weight, and having them means that members will always have a guaranteed space to come and work in, separate from any ongoing class (if you recall, we have a bank of 9 wheels for classes already set up and ready to go)! Aren’t they enticing? I can’t wait to take them each out for a spin, pun fully intended ;-)

Studio Manager at work!

Then we started in on preparing our line-up of glazes! Jennifer got suited up and, over two days, got all eight of our colored glazes mixed (she actually used a drill with a mixer attachment, but the whisk was more photogenic).

Meanwhile, Cary has been hard at work finishing making kiln cookies, a task we’ve both been hard at work at for weeks, sometimes with the help of friends and family! For those of you who don’t know much about pottery firing, kiln cookies are not nummy treats, although we certainly could have used some of those more than once over the last couple of weeks!

They work kind of like coasters with a mug of tea: you put your glazed pieces on them while they’re in the kiln, because if the glaze runs down and drips, this way you end up with molten glass-like gloop on the disposable cookie instead of on the big, much-harder-to-replace kiln shelf.

Then we got to unload the kiln!

Cary got to lift the lid. It was an exciting moment, since this was the first firing we’d ever gotten a chance to do in our new studio!

Can’t wait to start dipping these in our brand new glazes!

Needless to say, we were as close to jumping up and down as we could be in a confined space filled with fragile equipment :-) In the end, all but one tile made it and now we are ready for glazing!

It’s going to be a very fun and busy weekend! With lots more to do before the Open House, just one week away!! We can’t wait to see you there! Not sure how to get there?

Just drop us a line if you still have any questions about how to find us!

And remember, our very first class, an “Intro to Clay,” starts on April 22, the Monday after our Open House. It will cover the basics of wheel throwing and handbuilding, and will be co-taught by Cary and Jennifer. There are still some spots left if you’re interested, and don’t forget to check out the rest of our class line-up for spring and summer. There are quite a few already, but we’re still adding to it! New and exciting workshops are still coming!

So keep watching this space!

Glaze test tile making has begun!

With the slab roller assembled and our first of three worktables ready (other two still under construction and awaiting their canvas covers), we are finally ready to start making our glaze test tiles!

For those of you who don’t know your way around a pottery studio just yet, test tiles are an important tool for helping to decide the final look of your finished pieces. You can't do this just by looking at the glazes in their containers, because the color a glaze is before firing is generally completely different from the color it will be after exposure to temperatures over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit in the kiln.

Kiln magic at work!

Well, it’s actually science, not magic, and it’s really cool!

Same mugs!

Notice how what looks like an orangish-brown glaze is actually a cream color after firing, and the one that looked beige when first applied later turned a deep blue.

This is where test tiles come in. Using the same clays we’ll be using with our glazes, we’re creating tiles to test not only each glaze, but how the all of the glazes will look when paired. When all of the tiles are finished, we’ll hang them in grids over our glazing station, so that all of you can see which combinations are just right for your very own creations.

Our first batch of 20

These tiles are freshly cut from a leather-hard slab of clay and imprinted with texture, so that you’ll be able to see how each glaze and glaze combination looks on either a smooth or a textured surface.

If left unglazed, this particular clay will look pure white once fired.

Once we finish with this white clay, we’ll move on to making tiles to test glazes on our speckled brown clay.

To create tests for each glaze and combination of glazes we want to make available for use, we need to make about 125 tiles for each of our two colors of clay.

At this point, we’ve got over 200 left to make, but, as you can see, we are having a grand old time playing at the Clayground with all of our new toys!

Clayground’s owner and founder, Cary, and studio manager, Jennifer, hard at play!

Now that we’re really ramping up to launch, we’ll have more news for you very soon, about first classes, our Open House date and more!

Keep watching this space!

Wheel Unboxing Day!

It was a long time coming, but the electric for our main bank of nine wheels was finally ready, so at long last we got to have our first unboxing day! Oh, what fun it was to set them all up and see them spin!

Our nine new pottery wheels are plugged in and ready to go!

The bank includes four student wheels on each side, capped on the far end by the teacher’s wheel. We will have three additional wheels for members, too, in a dedicated area, although members will be free to use these ones as well when no classes are going on.

We can’t wait to play! We finally got our running water… which is great news! Still waiting on some other furniture and equipment. Should be coming soon.

Watch this space!

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