clay Archives - Creek Road Pottery LLC

Posts

Being Creative When Society Is An Inferno

The Dark Forest

“Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”

– Canto 1, Inferno by Dante Alighieri

I hit the doldrums, that eerie calm of not feeling like doing anything while you wait for the next foot to drop. Why throw a ware board of mugs or bowls if you feel stressed out? I thought I might better wait a day or two and read a book . At my other job I was still working though the pandemic. I was not a front line worker but simply an essential worker helping to make paper towels for a large company. It was nice to keep working and have a paycheck coming is and I even had a feeling of survivors guilt.

While many were having a bad time finding a place to be creative I had the space and time to be able to but just didn’t feel like it. While others in clay lost access to their community work spaces, equipment, and shows my studio sat vacant while I moped around feeling guilty about not going down to the studio even for them. I was also feeling terrible about not being productive. Motivational posts from Facebook or Instagram were no help in pulling me back up over the bank and only made me feel worse. And the only thing that did make me feel better was the reading and the caring customers and friends who came to check up on me and told me to take as much time as I needed to work things out a bit. I thought it would only be a week or so but it was almost two months. Cobwebs grew across the moths of unfired mugs as made my way through the dark forest I found myself in.

The Guide

“When I beheld him in the desert vast,
“Have pity on me,” unto him I cried,
“Whiche’er thou art, or shade or real man!”

– Canto 1, Inferno by Dante Alighieri

While moping around I was researching business and marketing techniques for selling my work. I signed up to get daily videos from Story Brand by David Miller. In one of those video he mentioned a book called “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl. I ordered the book and read it almost in one sitting on my day off from the factory. I Frankl’s ideas on suffering and his philosophy on logotherapy quite interesting and refreshing. If Frankl could survive the Nazi concentration camps of WWII with such a healthy attitude while seeing everything around him taken and destroyed there may be hope for me to get out the rut I was in.

Like Frankl mentions, I just needed to find my “Why” and focus more on that to keep going rather then the “what”. If I found the why the “How” would not matter as I would be able to make it happen. I could not wait for some answer or for something to happen. I had to form that meaning by creating it myself. And through creation find the “why”. Maybe I should just go back down the the studio and look around a bit. Maybe I should just knead up a few lumps of clay just in-case I felt like throwing again. And maybe… just maybe.. I should try a simple bowl real quick to see how things would go and if I still had it in me…maybe if I just took a few steps however big or small I would start walking towards the “why” at my own pace and slowly work out the “how”.

The Journey

“When I beheld him in the desert vast,
“Have pity on me,” unto him I cried,
“Whiche’er thou art, or shade or real man!”

– Canto 1, Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Well the first wear board of mugs were terrible as I got back to it a bit. With the lonesome whine of Hank Senior strumming “I saw the Light.” playing low in the background from Alexa I started though the inferno. There are others for sure who had far more of a challenging time and I am not at all looking for any kind of sympathy as we all travel our own infernos level by level when we start.

Many have a hard time finding the “why” or have no guide simply show up in same way and they may abandon that path when they see the great and terrible challenges of the “how” that stand in their way as some rocky mountain or beast. And for certain others have had a far more terrible of a journey where they had to awake the courage in some way to move forward if they were able. I thought maybe I should throw a wear board of bowls rather then mugs..and use some distraction..and let my mind flow some to relax and try to change my attitude to the mental suffering and blocks my head was going though. The bowls looked real bad also. It was not until I put the last bowl on the wear board I could see some kind of progression of style and form coming back ever so slightly. Local shops were calling for work on the reopening of the local economy as we moved from red to yellow.

My “why” appeared to be that I enjoyed helping people use authentic handmade in their everyday lives. And those things they used everyday could be also be art. I did not need to be 100% but only 70% if I needed. And the pots did not need to be perfect but maybe it was ok if they wobbled a bit. Like Dante I found my Beatrice somewhat and trudged on slowly.

The Ascent

‘We mounted up, he first and I the second,
Till I beheld through a round aperture
Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;
Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars”

– Canto 34, Inferno by Dante Alighieri

I have not made the ascent yet but making progress slowly at least. I am at least taking a few more steps forward then before in the studio. I had to switch to a new clay body as supplies ran short due to COVID-19. Learning the new clay body after working so long with the last has been a challenge. Drying cracks and firing issues are still being worked out but the struggle with the clay has been a great way to deal with the struggle is society. And as I pull the first mug from the kiln I knew things would slowly get better. I packed up that first mug and Frankel’s book and gave it as a summer reading gift to one of my customers and supporters.

So maybe sharing with community was some symbol of beholding the stars even though the the night was still a bit overcast. I am behind on custom orders and need more pots to fire out so I guess I’ll keep throwing. I find the long throwing sessions therapeutic and feel more relaxed when I finish unlike the stress from before. It was also brought to my attention that I need to still have a nice time, as if the pots ever become to much like work I might not enjoy the process as much.

Below are a few tips that might be able to help those of you who are far worse off than myself. To some all my small sufferings may simply sound like first world problems of the privileged but the slow down was real enough. If you the reader are having a bad time be sure not to be to hard on yourself and maybe start by forgiving yourself. Here is a great video on the struggle that I found helpful on climbing back up over the bank “How to Get Motivated During a Crisis in 5 Steps”.

By:

Alford D. Wayman
Artist/Owner
Creek Road Pottery LLC

Creating Authentic handmade pottery in the hills of the Blue Ridge Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania.

Notes:

Annie Reneau – “A trauma psychologist weighs in on the risks of ‘motivational’ pressure during quarantine”

Divine Comedy, By by Dante Alighieri Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Divine Comedy English Translation

Frankl, V. E. (1984). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Miller, Donald. Building a StoryBrand, 2017 (Harper Collins Leadership), Marketing Made Simple, 2020 (Harper Collins Leadership)

July 29, 2020/0 Comments/by creekroad

My Battle With Carbon Coring

Artist, bisque, Clay, Glaze, Kiln, pots, Pottery

Carbon coring or “black coring” can be an issue when firing clay bodies. While doing some experiments with reduction firings I had many pots that were cracking in the process and had no idea why. It seemed that the cracks were from fast cooling, as they were clean breaks through the glaze with sharp edges. Little did I know that this cracking was caused by carbon coring or “black coring”. I did some comparisons wth cross sections of the broken pots and noticed that this discoloration did not happen in my oxidation firings but only in reduction. I dug out my ceramic books and searched online to find out what this issue might be.

Shattered By Black Coring

While researching I found a post by the Lugna Clay company entitled ” Bloating and Black Coring”, which seem to suggest that I may need to bisque fire my clay body properly. The theory behind the article suggested that not all the carbon was burned out of the clay body and the kiln also may need to be vented better in the bisque firing. The clay body I was using was AMACO high-fire warm brown 58-M stoneware clay. I only had issues with bloating when I accidently overfire it a few times on the bottom shelves while trying to reach cone 6 in the middle of the kiln. The clay body was high in iron content which, I later found, created the issue with black coring when I reduced the updraft kiln to produce a body reduction. The iron in the clay and the reduction process was a bad combination and would produce a bad kiln load of pots. Bowls shattered as they cooled.

Black Coring – The Cause

The answer to the problem came from an excellent research report entitled “Calcium and sulphur distribution in red clay brick in the presence of a black reduction core using micro X-ray fluorescence mapping”. by L.Gredmaier, C.J.Banks , and R.B. Pearce. These findings can be found on page 2 and 3 of this report:

“The following factors determine the extent of black reduction coring in red clay ware:

- Firing time – a longer ring time can eliminate the black reduction core.

- The oxygen atmosphere during ring. Lack of oxygen promotes the formation of black reduction cores.

- Iron oxide content in the raw clay.

- Carbon content and burnout or oxidation of carbon during firing of the raw clay.”

The research in this report stated also that the red iron oxide was converting to magnetite.

To the potter, according to “The Potter’s Dictionary of Materials & Techniques” by Frank and Janet Hamer, on page 26, means this conversion created weakness to the clay body caused the clay to vitrify at a lower temperature due to the red iron oxide and carbon converting to black iron oxide and carbon dioxide, which creates an active flux . The pots become brittle and fragile. One mug I took from this load popped apart while I poured coffee in it as a test, sending shards across the table, because it could not withstand the thermal shock due to black coring.

Black Coring – The Solution

The solutions to black coring from the article link to above would be to use a clay body with less iron content. Also, it is suggested that bisque firings should be slower and to the correct temperature to allow carbon burn out. I personally found that in my high iron clay body, if I skipped the body reduction of the firing and reduced the kiln towards the end of the firing, I still got reduction glazes to look great without black coring.

If any of you who read this have found this helpful or have your own findings, feel free to leave a comment!

Al Wayman
Artist /Owner
Creek Road Pottery LLC

September 12, 2016/0 Comments/by creekroad

Firing The Amaco AG40 Updraft Kiln

Artist, Clay, Glaze, Kiln, pots, Pottery

View post on imgur.com

Firing out the Amaco AG40 is great for raku , but I sure had issues with the higher temperatures. When I was working towards my degree and also was an apprentice at a pottery when I found a little Amaco AG40 updraft kiln in the classified section of the paper. The kiln was owned by older gentlemen and hobby potter about two hours from where I lived. This gentleman had the kiln installed above his garage he was using as a studio. He had a ventilation fan that came with the kiln and everything was in great condition. A family member and I loaded this little kiln onto a truck and carefully drove it home.

The kiln had no instruction manual, and we had to learn how to light it from the label on the side. We had the gas company bring out two tanks and connected both with 2 lines running into one hose with a connection to the regulator. After following the directions, we were able to fire the burner and bring the kiln to life. That summer, and for the next two years would use the little kiln to run a raku line of pots. Those were the best summers. We ran a Spring and Fall show with demonstrations for the public. It was three days of fire, smoke, and pottery.

View post on imgur.com

Dusting off the AG40 Updraft

After graduating with a B.F.A. in Ceramics and leaving the pottery, I put all my equipment into storage. I had to find work to pay off student loans. When my wife and I bought our home, I put in a small clay studio with the encouragement of friends and family who were into the wet shaving hobby. These friends wanted lather bowls and brush handles. I hooked up my little Amaco Kiln again and looked online for a manual. Amaco was able to send me an old manual. I only fired this kiln to a midrange temperature with this kiln once but could not remember the schedule to repeat it. The manual had a suggested firing schedule, so I started tinkering.

I had the gas company come and hook up a tank large enough to prevent freezing. The first few firing were terrible simply because I was not able to properly regulate how much gas was going to the kiln’s burners and I had a broken gauge. I started with a simple bisque fire but knew I had to make some repairs before I went to a full first firing.

At times I was almost ready to roll the kiln over the bank. I had a whole cone or more difference in temperature between the bottom and top, with the bottom shelf being hotter. The kiln would also stall out. So I saved up some money and bought a converter kit. The kit had a stand with an updraft burner which allowed hookup to a twenty-pound propane tank. This helped out a great deal because I now had more control over the amount of gas and temperature of the kiln because this had a gauge that worked.

With the conversion kit, I now went back to square one and used the firing schedule out of the manual and completed a midrange firing. I still had a large temperature difference between the top and bottom. To fix this issue, I widened the glaze firing range so that the top of the kiln would not fall under fire. I was able to get a few good pots using this method; that is until I accidently overfired on Christmas day.

Over Firing The Amaco AG40

Meet the Kilns

On Christmas Eve 2015 I prepped and glazed a load of shave bowls that I wanted to have completed as Christmas gifts. I wanted to wrap those gifts right from the kiln for dramatic purposes and hand them out a few days later. Glazing ran later than expected and the firing stalled out climbing to cone 5/6. I left it run for an hour longer than usual, but the cone was not bending. I realized that the gas had dropped off. After fixing the issue, I went back inside. It was now 3 am Christmas morning, and I had an alarm set to go off every 15 minutes, but instead it went off after another 45 minutes. While I nodded off with”visions of sugar plums dancing in my head” the little Amaco AG40 was over firing.

I jolted awake and looked at the time and realized the problem, then rushed to the kiln and looked through the peephole. The bottom shelf was running real hot, and the middle shelf cone was now all the way down. Thinking I caught it in time I started the 2-hour cooling cycle the manual recommended. All was fine until I opened the kiln about 30 hours later.

The bottom shelf was severely warped with cone 5/6 clay pots melted to it. It appeared that the shelf might have gone to cone 9 or 10. The second shelf of pots had blister marks in them, so I suspect this shelf reached cone 7/8. The top shelf was perfect. I was able the salvage five good shave bowls to give to friends.

All of this was great practice on how quickly things can escalate even if minor adjustments are made. I am still working out temperature differences, and the little Amaco AG40 needs new bricks and repair work done. But the kiln has grown on me, and I enjoy firing it out in both reduction and oxidation firings.

Click here for the manual for those who may need it. It’s quite old but had some good information in it. If you would like to add your experiences or tips concerning the Amaco AG40 or updraft kilns in general, feel free to comment!

Al Wayman
Artist /Owner
Creek Road Pottery LLC

August 12, 2016/0 Comments/by creekroad

Welcome to Creek Road Pottery!

Clay, Glaze, Kiln, Pottery

Welcome to Creek Road Pottery!

We are happy that everyone has stopped by for a visit and we have been working on the website to get it ready for for future content. We would like to thank everyone who took part in the pilot order program. It was a big help as we find our areas of strengths and opportunities. It was always my dream to open a ceramic pottery and work clay. Running an operation is hard work and keeping track of everything has been both fun and challenging. I have a full time job so the pottery is a part-time endeavor for now.

Currently I am working many areas of the business at once. Making the pots is only about thirty percent, the rest is learning to market yourself to customer segments that you would like to target. There are many areas we need to improve in. One area is to add more glaze colors to the pallet I have. When I started out running tests and composing a glaze I at first wanted to keep it simple so it would cut down on cost to the final prototype when it came to raw materials. I was able to find a recipe with only four ingredients. However, this had to be modified to the clay body I was using. The clay body had large amounts of Iron in it that would come out during the firings and interact with the oxides in the glaze.

Also there was, and still is, the issue of to much reduction in the kiln, causing both the clay and glaze body to go much darker then planned. In the future I plan on allowing more space and air flow through the kiln to allow the glaze to oxidize and this should bring about the nice blue/green colors I am trying to achieve. Once I am able to get a few more of these challenges worked out the color should be more stable and add value to the ceramic ware.

A huge help was having small electric kilns that could be turned into gas updraft kilns by purchasing a simple kit (shown below). This allowed me to have two kilns that can fire off twenty pound propane tanks with little effort. With the lower gas prices I am able to get two firings off one tank. The kits were easy to use and by cutting a simple hole in the center of both the top and bottom of the kilns and the process of firing was simplified.

Another big cost savings that happened quite by accident was the small gas kiln that I had in storage is built in sections. This allowed me to run smaller loads of orders without using extra gas or waiting to fill a large kiln load like some of the larger potteries. I was able to simply take a ring or two off, place the lid on and fire one or two orders at a time. This add value to the customer experience because it cuts down on wait time, which I found when researching, can take up to 6 weeks for an order to arrive from a larger pottery. My goal is to get custom orders down between two or three weeks.

In the next few weeks we will be trying to mail out new orders and also researching how to improve packing and shipping. Shipping charges currently are quite high due to the weight of the pots and extra packing material that is needed to ensure safe delivery. We will be looking at some packing techniques used by others in the trade and also be researching some ideas that can simplify the whole process but still manage a high degree of quality. Currently the cold weather has delayed some firings. With the sub freezing temperatures it was a worry that the small kilns would cool much to fast and cause cracks and crazing.

Stay tuned to win free pots as we do more prototype testing to find out what is important to people and what they like. Craftsmanship, Quality, and Customer Service are the big three items we are working on. We appreciate any feed back or ideas you may have.

Once again we thanks everyone for stopping by. I have a long way to go but am having a blast working with you all. The guys have been upbeat about getting their pictures on the website. There are even links to their Facebook pages so you can learn more about the team. Once we get all the administrative things out of the way and streamline the process things should get mush easier. Once again thanks for all your support! Be sure to leave a comment below and say hello!

– Al Wayman,

Creek Road Pottery

February 11, 2016/5 Comments/by creekroad