ceramics: the slow satisfaction of creating intentional pottery
Pay attention when you should. Let it go when you must. That's how magic happens.
This is the first part of a series on ceramic creation. If you’re an aspiring potter, or have an interest in the craft, I hope you enjoy this work. The first two instalments are part of my free offering for subscribers.
I set the firing schedule carefully, double checking every time, because mistakes can be made, and mistakes can be costly and feel like a setback when it’s due to not paying careful enough attention.
There’s the double question now on this kiln, do you really want to start now? it asks me. Only if you promise not to cause me agony when I open you again, I think, and press yes.
So many things can, and do go wrong in pottery. Simple things. Too much tin oxide in a glaze will make it so milky and uninteresting, while just five simple grams more of copper oxide will oversaturate and turn the glaze green-black, and not in a nice way. Put a piece with chrome in the glaze next to a piece with iron and you’ll get Chrom-Eisen Bildung, a kind of flat black plaque that ruins both. There are hundreds of other small mistakes will take your peace, ruin your day, and make you want to quit. My pottery instructor, Christoph, made sure I drilled most of them into my head.
Twenty six years ago, I learned pottery and glazing from Christoph in German, and to this day I don’t always have the English vocabulary I need to describe pottery things. I find this a testament to the discipline I needed to muster learning the craft outside of anything resembling a comfort zone. I must have really wanted to learn - I surely don’t know if I’d have the same discipline today.
Anyway, back to things going wrong. I’m not being negative here; disaster is part of a potter’s life, the part that keeps her humble lest those magically good pieces that occur in kismet-like fashion go to her head.
I’ve learned a few truths from creating with clay. The first is go slow. There is literally nothing at all that’s gained by rushing when working in this medium. I start my work by making sure my workplace is set up. Then, I focus on one piece, bringing it to its momentary conclusion, wrap it, shelf it and start on the next. I’ve lost so many pieces by starting too many at once. I make less but each piece is better. In the end, it means less chucking bad pieces back in the clay recycle pile or even worse, the trash.
In essence, becoming deeply intentional about the process simply reduces frustration, bad work, and wasted time. Beth Kempton writes so beautifully about hikikomogomo (悲喜交々), the alternating feelings of joy and sorrow when confronted with the bittersweet nature of life.
The Japanese know a great deal about pottery, its difficult nature and how bittersweet dedication to this craft can be. I’ve tasted the salt of my own tears time and again in my studio, sometimes for the work, sometimes for what the work brings up. It’s those moments that are, of course, the dearest, because they are the ones that bring learning to the surface, either of the craft or of one’s art of living.
The focus on hand movements, lighting and sound have become so much more important to me with studio work. I can feel myself letting distraction go and simply moving with the piece, as though there were no separation between myself and the work.
Pottery is, in a very true sense, meditation.
I’m currently working on a set of eight large and eight very large flat bowls. I’ve been given a large amount of creative freedom in their creation; that can be good and also challenging, as I want the client to find the work pleasing. I’ve chosen a subtle palette of buttery taupe, white, off white and aquamarine.
The first five sets have come through the bisque, or first firing, brilliantly. The temperature for this firing is 900 degrees Celsius, leaving the clay baked but porous enough to accept the glaze easily. Getting to the 600 degrees is very time consuming during this first firing. Six hundred degrees is a magic temperature, because between 400 and 700 degrees, any chemically bound water in the piece is driven off. So getting to 600 degrees, the standard for potters should take at least 6 hours. I allow 7 to 8. If the kiln heats up too quickly to 600 degrees, pieces can explode. Easily.
The rest of the sets, including 2 extras (I always make 20% more than an order calls for because of all the reasons that everything can go wrong at any time during the entire process) goes in the kiln for the first firing tomorrow. While those fire, I’ll make all the glazes I need for this order.
I make all my glazes, and as the master in my pottery school always told me, I “thicker than milk but thinner than heavy cream”. To make sure this is achieved, I mix and sieve the glazes, then let them stand for 24 hours to slake. I used to never do this. But the slaking means that the water has enlarged all the particles of raw materials, making it a much more well combined and smoother glaze.
Creating and mixing glazes is an entire science unto itself, and it requires real dedication to the craft. I have learned to take my time measuring raw materials. In earlier years I would mix, sieve, apply the glaze and start the firing cycle all in one day. Now this is a 3 day process for me, with each piece as close to perfectly glazed as I can get it, mostly with waxed bottoms to eliminate the chance of glaze adhesion to the kiln shelves.
Because all the chemically bound water has been fired out of the clay in the first firing, the second, or glaze firing, can heat up more quickly without risking damage. But there is risk at the other end - if pieces cool too quickly, or if the kiln lid is opened too soon, disaster can happen in the form of hairline cracks, shivering (the glaze bunching into pools, or changes to the glaze colour and surface.
A glaze firing a last 12 hours, with another 12-18 to cool completely down. It requires a motherlode of patience to not open the kiln too soon. Too soon is definitely any temperature above 250° C, but ideally it’s much better to crack the oven first when it’s below 100°C. Or even less. The closer to room temperature, the better.
The best thing for me to do with a second firing is to set the oven, and then not go anywhere near it and forget I’m even firing. Not opening a hot kiln out of curiosity requires a motherlode of patience and maturity.
There are entire worlds of pottery that are so different from each other. I work in the world of high-fired pottery, with soft colours and very long durability. This is called stoneware. Lower fired pieces are known as earthenware, majolica, terracotta and by other names, depending on the history and country. These pieces will often have brighter colours, but with lower durability.
I fire to stoneware temperature, which means that the glass in the clay (mostly in the form of quartz) melts with the glass in the glaze (in the form of flint, silica or quartz), forming a glass bond that locks the glaze to the clay. This happens at temperatures above 1220° C. Fire lower than this, and the glaze doesn’t bond with the clay, and pieces tend to chip more easily. Colors fired above the 1220° threshold are nuanced and subtle. The higher the firing temperature, the stronger the vitrified bond, and the more long lasting the pieces.
Each of these phases of creating a pot are to be handled carefully and with intention, so that each piece has the best chance of survival. I’ve learned this, like most potters, the hard way. And even with attention and care paid at every curve, things can still take a nosedive.
Which leads me to what I believe is the meaning of all creative work - letting go of outcome. When you hold on to a pot too closely, when you find it too dear coming off the wheel, and you anxiously open the oven a little too early to see the result, it’s likely to disappoint. It’s when you’ve put in all the good work and completely let go of the end result that magic happens.
This is really difficult.
It takes a great deal of experience to get to the point of being able to release the outcome, but I’m there, otherwise the stress of worrying would strip the process of joy as it did in my early days. Now I pay attention when I need to pay attention - during the making - and let the fire, water and air turn the earth into a vessel that serves purpose. Or not. And that’s a very good place to be as a creator, I think.
Down the road, when I’m no longer here,
I hope my pieces grace someone’s table,
holding food that is healthy and enjoyable,
and maybe someone will look under a plate,
see my name and think,
she made a nice plate.
That thought, in essence, makes it all worth it.
Really enjoyed this, even despite having a bit of a pottery slump myself right now. There is something so amazing about pottery.
Another lovely read Diana! Pottery has never been in my artistic wheelhouse, probably because I never had the patience for it.