Stoneware · Glaze tests · Small batches
Clay taught me patience the hard way. These pages collect glaze experiments, notes from the wheel, and photographs of work as it dries. I sell small batches when a firing goes well; the rest of the time I'm just learning what the material wants to do.
Cone six, a stubborn cold spot in the back corner, and a glaze that pinholed on three mugs. I'm writing it all down because the failures teach faster than the wins — and next time I'll load the shelves looser.
I've thrown maybe two hundred mugs and kept a dozen. The handle is always the argument: too thin and it burns, too thick and it lies in the hand. This week one finally felt right the moment it left the wheel.
Six test tiles, one weekend, a spreadsheet I'll pretend to keep updated. A satin white broke unexpectedly blue where it pooled — the kind of accident I'll spend a month trying to repeat on purpose.
Cold studio, slow drying, cracked rims. I switched to a groggier body that forgives the temperature swings and my own impatience. Notes on wedging, water, and why I stopped rushing the leather-hard stage.
Sold enough to cover the clay and talked to more people than I do in a month. Someone bought the chipped second on purpose because 'it looked used already'. I think about that a lot.
Found three forgotten test tiles, a bag of hardened slip, and a bowl I'd written off that survived. Cleaning the studio is really an inventory of everything I meant to finish and didn't — yet.
