More New Wheels, Glaze Making, Our First Kiln Firing and... Just One Week To Go Until Our Open House!
We have unboxed our last wheels, bisque fired all 300 test tiles, mixed up all 8 of our colored glazes… and our Open House is just one week away! Now to glaze all those tiles…
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!
Firing Up The Kiln For The First Time!
300 test tiles are in the kiln for their initial low-temp firing. With our new ventilation system finally fully installed, we could finally fire it up! So exciting. Tomorrow, glaze making!
Well, last week we finally got the finishing touches on our kiln room’s ventilation system, which means that today we could load up and fire for the first time!!
The first things on the agenda were, of course, our test tiles, which had to undergo their initial bisque firing––a lower temperature firing (a mere 1945 degrees F)––in order to become hard and sturdy enough to stand up to glazing.
“Why 300?” you might ask. Well, it isn’t madness, and it isn’t Sparta ;-) We have our reasons! Read on for more details…
You can’t see all 300 in the photo above, but trust me, by the time we were done, they were all in there and we’d filled the kiln!
So, why?
Well, we have two different kinds of clay and are going to have between 8–10 glazes at any given time (we hope!), and we want our students and members to be able to see not only how they each look on their own on each clay, but also how they look in combination with each other! That means a pretty big grid for each clay type, with over 120 tiles in each. We hope it works as well on the wall as it does on paper! We’ll know soon enough.
Tomorrow, after all, we’re mixing up our first batches of glaze!
For now, we’ll leave our kiln to it…
Our Amaco electric kiln is almost ready to fire in this picture, with the last shelves and test tiles ready to get loaded in
Now, some of you may remember us mentioning that we have three kilns in our kiln room. Our Amaco Excel is the first one we’re firing up, as we’re doing some repairs on the others, one of which has a very special legacy. More on that in a future post!
For now, keep watching this space for more glazing updates and Open House news (don’t forget to mark your calendars for Saturday, April 20, from 12–5 pm!). Dates and extra details on our Upcoming Events and Calendar page!
See you soooo soon!