We begin our pottery process by wedging a piece of clay into a ball, and then throwing it on a wheel into a basic mug form. To throw, you center the clay with plenty of water, and use your hands to mold and shape the clay into the form you want. Once you’ve thrown your basic mug body, you cut it off the wheel with a wire and let it rest on a shelf for a day or two under a plastic sheet until it is “leather hard.” At the leather hard stage, you trim the bottom of the mug to be nice and smooth and symmetrical. I also stamp the bottom of the mug with my madhouse ceramics logo at this point, and then I add a handle by scoring the sides of the mug, dabbing some water on the roughed-up spots, and attaching the handle. Without scoring and water, the handle will crack and pop right off the mug body. Now, we let the mug dry for about a week until it is “bone dry.” It is very important to let pieces dry thoroughly - any bit of moisture left in the clay will cause it to explode in the kiln. It’s also important to let the clay dry slowly to reduce warping and cracks.

Once we have completely dry clay pieces, we can begin firing them in the kiln! The first firing is called a “bisque” firing, just like lobster bisque. This firing reaches just over 1,800 F, and takes about a day to reach temperature and cool down again. Once the kiln is cooled down to a temperature safe enough to handle with your bare hands, we glaze our pottery. I wax the bottoms of my pieces to make sure the glaze has a nice crisp line at the bottom, and either dip the pottery in a huge bucket of glaze, or hand-paint glaze onto the pottery with a paintbrush. Then, our pottery undergoes another firing, this time to over 2,100 F. This also takes about a day. When this firing cools, opening up the kiln and seeing all your fully glazed and fired pieces is like Christmas morning! At this juncture, you have fully functional, fully food-safe, ready-to-use pottery. Many potters stop and this point, and I stop at this point for some of my pieces as well, but I also choose to add overglaze decals and/or gold luster to some of my pieces, which takes additional steps and firings (continued below).