At the age of 4 my mother started attending a local pottery evening class and would often bring bits of work home to finish off. I remember sitting for what seemed like hours while she sketched me in order to create my head in clay, and would bribe me with scraps of clay to encourage me to remain static. I would play for hours with this wonderful stuff, making basic coil pots, squishing them up and starting over again. I loved the feeling of this medium in my hands as well as its earthy smell. When I studied Art and Design at Manchester Polytechnic a few years later I hoped to get involved in the ceramics department but with a tight schedule and so many aspects of design to cover, I never got my chance to be a potter.
Five years ago, now in my 40s and studying for a Masters degree in something desperately serious, I discovered an afternoon class in beginners’ ceramics that would fit in with my university lectures and rediscovered my creative skills. I worked my way through the various levels, starting to bring clay home to make utility ceramics that my tutor would not have allowed me to produce in class and was lucky enough to be able to fire my work in the college kiln. Eventually the class fell victim to cut backs and I was left without a pottery class. So I put the word out that I was looking for a kiln of my own. One of my tutors offered me hers, used only 3 times and at a bargain mates’ rates price and against every ceramicist’s advice I installed it in my spare bedroom. For me the joy of having my own kiln is that I can fire what I like when I like and any firing mistakes (which used to occur frequently at the pottery classes) are all my own.
Black and White Ceramic Rings
I am also able to choose from the huge ranges of glazes on offer instead of having to stick to the dull, sludgy colours that the classes provided. I started my glaze collection with black, white, transparent and all the moss and sage greens I could find. My latest glazes are flame red and antique gold and there are still so many that I want to get my hands on. Ceramics is proving to be a worthwhile hobby for me. As soon as I started running out of shelf space in my home for my creations I began selling at local craft fairs and found that other people liked my work. Now I specialise in small and decorative pieces that I can incorporate into my jewellery designs and even receive wholesale orders from time to time.
Ceramic Brooches
The first time I fired up my kiln I was absolutely terrified. I had armed myself with special goggles and heat resistant gloves which the manuals had told me were basic and essential protective gear that everyone should use. Needless to say, three years later they are still in the packaging and I have never had a need to use them yet. Armed with instruction manual, this intrepid potter carefully loaded the kiln for the first time ever and flung the window open to ensure that none of those toxic chemicals that are present in the clay would wipe out the population of south Manchester. My kiln does not have an automatic programmer and so I have to increase the temperature gradually every hour or two hours depending on whether I am doing a bisque or glaze firing, which means that an alarm clock is vital in the procedure.
Green and Pewter Ceramic Ring
The hardest part of using the kiln for me is still loading the kiln with glazed pieces. As ceramicists know, pieces must not touch each other as they would just fuse together in the heat, and nobody wants a huge chunk of glazed clay to come out of the kiln instead of the masterpieces that are expected. I can spend a long time trying to fit all my work into the space in my small kiln and have been known to remove and rearrange for hours. It is rather like a jigsaw puzzle and I invariably find that there are a couple of pieces that just have to wait until the next firing session. The small pieces used in my jewellery are great kiln fillers as they will fit perfectly between larger items. This is how my ceramic buttons originated when I realised that there was an awful lot of dead space being heated at each firing. So nowadays the kiln is more efficiently loaded with less unused space.
After a glaze firing has ended the potter is supposed to wait for around 24 hours before opening the kiln door or lid, but even after three years firing experience I simply cannot wait that long. After around 15 hours I just have to take a quick look. I never know how my work is going to turn out. It all depends on where in the kiln an item has been positioned, close to a wall, on a high or low shelf as these factors can mean a different temperature and exposure to the heat. I do have to wait for my daughter to come home from school before unloading as we can share the ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ moments together as we see these creations in all their glory for the first time.
Visit Amanda’s WowThankYou store, Gimme That Thing, to view and purchase her wonderful jewellery.
Tags: ceramics, clay, glazes, handmade, jewellery, kiln, pottery, WowThankYou
I really enjoyed reading this