POTTERY PROCESS

This ancient craft requires time, patience and diligence. When building with clay timing and maintenance is key. Clay is a material that is very malleable and forgiving. To build specific forms, the clay needs to be at a certain consistency (not to dry and not too wet). To get better at pottery, understanding your hands and body will help a lot.

DRYING TIME

Once pottery pieces are freshly made we must ensure the pieces dry slowly. If the drying process is not maintained properly the pieces can bend/curl, crack or even break before it is even fired. After your session, there is still more work to be done; keeping the moisture from evaporating too fast by using a plastic bag or sheet to cover it, spraying parts of the pieces where its drying faster than the rest of it, the surface it is drying on is dry, and making sure any other support is still supporting the pieces well etc. The drying process can not be rushed if we want to achieve the best results! Depending on size, it takes AT LEAST a week to dry properly. Bigger or thicker pieces takes around 2 weeks. It must be bone dry before firing, if it’s not the pieces have a high chance of exploding in the kiln. Trust me, I’ve tried!

FIRING

A piece of ceramic at Palm Pottery has to go through 2 rounds of firing. First round is bisque fire. This round of firing at 800 degrees celcius is required before we paint or glaze our pottery. Second is glaze fire, which is fired at a higher temperature of 1220 degrees celcius in order to make the glazes appear turning our pottery into ceramic!