The snow is finally melting. Spring rain is washing away the last of the ice, and with it, the inertia that kept me from the studio through the coldest months. I have one more night shift at the big paper factory, and then I can get back to what matters: making pots for the spring show. Over the last ten years of selling work, it’s been this constant balance, working full-time in manufacturing while trying to maintain a pottery practice. Rotating twelve-hour shifts. Stolen hours in a cold studio. Pots made in the margins of a life that doesn’t quite fit anyone’s romantic notion of what an artist’s life should look like.
This year marks ten years of Creek Road Pottery as a business. Ten years of shows and failures and small victories. Ten years of learning to balance factory reliability with studio freedom. And for this anniversary show, I want to try something different. Something that pushes me beyond the comfortable patterns I’ve fallen into. Something remarkable, to use Seth Godin’s term. Not a gimmick, not attention-seeking, just work that stands out because it’s genuinely different from what I’ve been making. Work that’s made for someone specific rather than everyone in general.
Back at the Wheel: The Practice Returns
I finally got back into the studio and started using up the 500 pounds of reprocessed clay I’ve been avoiding. Without a pug mill, the process is tedious: let it get bone dry, slake it down with water in five-gallon pails, wedge it, knead it, hope the lumps work themselves out. Today I wedged and kneaded that clay and threw a ware board of mugs on the treadle wheel. It was nice to get back to throwing pots after so long away.
I was definitely out of practice. The forms weren’t as consistent as they used to be. The reprocessed clay had hard spots that showed up when throwing thin. Each piece felt like relearning something my hands used to know without thinking. It’s all practice though. And if I’m making work for myself, I get to go easy on myself when I mess up a few pieces. As I threw, ideas started forming about what I wanted the spring show to look like. This reprocessed clay has a lot of iron in it and fires out to a warm brown that looks quite nice with glazes over the top, especially greens and blues. The work itself was starting to tell me what it wanted to become.
The Big Idea: Multiple Techniques Converging
I have this big idea for the spring show. I want to combine multiple firing techniques in ways I haven’t tried before. The plan is to lay work on its side on sea shells and fire them in the gas kiln, then soak the pieces in whole milk that hasn’t been pasteurized to try a technique called milk firing. One of the things I worry about even before doing the test is how well the shell print will show up on pots fired to only cone 6, and whether the milk will soak into clay that’s already been vitrified.
The plan is to fire test pieces in the little kiln first. I would try the milk firing in the house oven, but I think my wife would protest about that. To do a milk glaze, you soak the pots in fatty milk for 15 minutes and then heat them to about 280°F for 15 minutes. Depending on how well the milk is absorbed, it adds a nice brown sheen to the work. I’m also thinking about adding terra sigillata, burnishing it while the clay is leather hard, which would give the surface more sheen and make burn marks show up better. It’s a lot of technical language for what amounts to an earthy, raw aesthetic. I enjoy trying things that may not work, though ideally I should try running tests on pots when they’re not needed for important shows. Then again, what’s the fun and excitement in that?
Testing, Testing: From Theory to Practice
I actually ran the tests instead of just thinking about them. I bought heavy cream milk from a local farm and dipped test pots in it, fully submerged for 15 minutes each. After pulling them out, I let them dry before putting them in the studio convection oven for 20 minutes at 400°F. The results were quite nice. The finish had a nice sheen and looked a little like a wood fire glaze finish. This is exactly what I was hoping for.
The next round of testing got more experimental. I tried syrup and honey drip decorations, placing the test pieces on their sides in the convection oven and baking them for 20 minutes at 400°F. I discovered that the smoke alarms in the studio do work—when the honey and syrup started to char there was a little smoke. The results were quite nice though. The lines that the liquid burned into the clay looked real earthy and interesting with the milk glaze technique under it. I used a leather glove to smooth and sand the char, and the test drips came out with a nice sheen. With these types of alternative firings, the possibilities feel endless. A whole new path of work is opening up.
Behind the Scenes: The Real Balance
Over the last ten years of selling work, it’s been a constant balance between working full time in manufacturing and making pots. I’ve worked a lot of hours on rotating twelve-hour shifts. I’ve also made a lot of pots. Today I decided to sleep a little more before my last night shift because the product we’ll be creating is somewhat challenging. I’ve learned that everything might change by the time I get there, so I find out what’s happening when I show up and attempt to do the next thing correctly, one after another, for twelve hours.
This is different than what happens in the studio back home. In the studio, everything is not as planned. I have the ability to show up late if I like, to run experiments and tests. Showing up late for me might be sleeping in an extra hour or two rather than waking up at 5:00 AM. Apart from making pots, I also need to factor in time with family, friends, and loved ones. I have to make time to do fun things with my wife, take her on dates, do things that she enjoys. My wife is not an artist and does not enjoy pots as much as I do. I think that’s fine. Not everyone needs to enjoy what I enjoy, think like me, or do what I do. Each person has their own story to tell and should not live the story of another unless they choose to.
Looking Ahead: What’s Coming
My next plan is to throw some large vases and apply these milk glazing techniques to actual show pieces. I also have some white clay that I can make mugs with. I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped recently, but I did have great conversations with pottery friends on an open studio workshop over Zoom. It was refreshing to talk to others about what projects we’re all working on. The community of makers, even when we’re separated by distance, provides fuel when the work feels hard.
The spring show is less than a month away now. Ten years of Creek Road Pottery. I want this show to be something extra, something that says thank you to all the supporters who have bought pots through the years. The experiments are working. The ideas are forming. The clay is ready. Now it’s just a matter of showing up, day after day, and doing the work. Making the pots. Running the tests. Pushing through the failures to find what works.
Some days the work is making pots. Some days it’s working night shifts at the factory. Some days it’s having conversations with pottery friends. All of it feeds the whole. All of it matters.
Thank you for following along and supporting Creek Road Pottery. Every comment, visit, and bit of encouragement makes the long hours worth it. I hope your spring is full of good conversations, hot tea, warm blankets, creative victories, and the courage to make good work.
Until next time,
Alford Wayman
Artist/ Owner
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