Fourteen people, three wheels, two kilns and a drying room that has not changed since 1998.
The studio occupies a former joinery on the east side of the city. It was chosen for one reason: the north-facing clerestory, which delivers even light from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon without a single lamp.
Fourteen people work here. Three throw full-time, four finish and glaze, two run the kilns, and the rest handle everything between an order arriving and a crate leaving.
The drying room
Every piece spends between four and nine days in a windowless room held at a constant humidity. Dry too fast and the rim cracks; dry too slowly and the foot warps.
The room has not been modified since the studio opened. We have replaced the humidifier twice and changed nothing else.
What we do not automate
Handles are pulled by hand. Glaze lines are poured by hand. Feet are trimmed by hand. Everything else — mixing, wedging, packing — has been mechanised, and we would mechanise more if it did not show.
It shows.
Written by the Classic Ceramics studio. Questions about anything here are welcome —write to us.
