– Creek Road Pottery LLC Newsletter – July 19th, 2026 –
Hello from rural Pennsylvania, where the Canadian wildfire smoke has cleared, the summer heat has not, and the wood kiln arch is on its third attempt. The last two weeks have been a mix of kiln construction, book reading, fall show prep, a scout earning his pottery merit badge, and the slow realization that I may have accidentally become a Stoic. This newsletter covers the stretch from early July through this week, and the theme running through all of it is the same one it always is: do the work, learn from the mistakes, write it down honestly, and keep moving forward one brick, one pot, one page at a time.
The fall shows are coming. August through November, almost back-to-back, ending with the Christmas show here at Creek Road. That means the next few weeks shift from building and reading to making and firing. Then the daily work narrows down to forms, themes, techniques, and inventory. Here is the full report.
The Arch, Third Time
Ana’s ware-chamber arch is going up for the third time. The first attempt used the wrong sand. The second attempt compounded an uneven base across seven rows before I caught it. This time around I am catching the smaller mistakes earlier, wrong brick thickness mixed into a row, mortar applied too thick, missing shims between the form and the bricks. Since the kiln is pieced together with many types of bricks, I need to pay close attention to what is going into each course. When laying straight bricks on the row it is easy to get the thickness mixed up, and as more rows are added the gap becomes wider and wider. If I had been smarter about it I would have discovered the problem at row one rather than at seven.
Subscribers received a detailed technical post this month on arch construction, drawing from Frederick Olsen’s The Kiln Book, Émile Bourry’s 1911 treatise, Ann Stannard’s 1980 Bourry box firing account, and Will Ruggles’ 1992 Penland troubleshooting guide. The post covers bonded versus ring arches, mortar applied as a wedge rather than a uniform layer, locking the key brick into true compression, corbelled openings for flues, and thermal expansion rates during firing. It is the kind of documentation I wish I had when the rebuild started, and leaving a legible trail for the next person building an arch on faith and a wooden form felt like the least I could do. Ana came as a gift with living knowledge attached. The arch post is my attempt to pass some of that knowledge forward.
The Books
I finished Jack Troy’s Wood-Fired Stoneware and Porcelain during the stretch of hundred-degree days when kiln building was too dangerous to attempt. The book was excellent, and I now feel I have better information to put together with the firings I have done to make informed decisions about prepping, managing, and firing the work. It is one of the best books on wood firing I have read, as many firing books simply include wood alongside other methods rather than treating it as its own discipline. The bibliography and appendix charts were as valuable as the chapters. Many instruction books today do not include bibliographies. The charts, though outdated, pointed me toward updated sources.
From Troy’s bibliography, I ordered Kilns: Design, Construction, and Operation by Daniel Rhodes, which I have started reading, and after that, I plan to read The Kiln Book by Frederick L. Olsen. I also finished The Self-Reliant Potter by Andrew Holden, which I signed out of the library since it is out of print and expensive to buy. And I went back to Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, specifically the section on page 79 about how the professional acts in the face of fear. Pressfield writes that the amateur believes he must first overcome his fear before he can do his work, while the professional knows fear can never be overcome. That distinction has been sitting with me since. The fear of the kiln failing, the arch not holding, the firebox not drawing, none of it goes away. You just get tired of waiting for it to leave and start stacking bricks anyway.
The Garden
Rachel and I pulled the first real harvests from the garden. Kale, broccoli, and radishes came out, with the cauliflower next. The radishes were a little disappointing as some grew tall rather than producing, though it may have been the variety. We made a nice salad for dinner with what we picked. My dad would always laugh when eating from the garden and say how lucky we were to eat a free meal. We all knew no meal is free and a lot of work goes into growing a garden. The garden is part of the same plan everything else is part of: growing food that is getting expensive at the store and depending a little less on systems we don’t control.
I have been tracking grocery costs through Claude A.I. and the garden is starting to show up in the numbers as a real offset. The first win was no longer needing to buy bagged kale. Small number on its own, but real, and real numbers add up over a season. Weeding is the ongoing battle. Keeping up with it all can get out of control fast if you let a week go by, and between the factory shifts and the kiln build, weeks go by more often than I’d like.
Reinvention and Writing Your Own Story
Two posts this month dealt with the same idea from different angles. Reinvention is not a dramatic event. It does not happen because you quit your job and walk out into the sunlight a changed person. It happens over months and years, in the mornings and evenings between the shifts, in the studio after midnight, in the posts written half asleep at the keyboard. The farm kid became the factory worker. The factory worker became the potter. The potter became the writer. The writer became the kiln builder. None of those were clean transitions. They happened because the old version ran out of room and the only direction left was forward.
The factory has a story, but it is not my story. Someone else wrote it and I participate in it. The pottery is my story. The kiln is my story. The garden is my story. This post is my story. Every pot I throw, every brick I stack, every seed we plant, every word I type before the sun comes up or after the shift ends, those are pages in a book I am writing with my own hands. If you are spending all your time inside someone else’s story, I am not going to tell you to quit. I am going to tell you to start writing your own alongside it. One page. One pot. One post. One small act of creation that belongs to you.
The Microscope and the Fall Shows
The next few weeks narrow down. I have at least three shows almost back to back starting in August through November, and I need inventory. In the early drawing classes we did exercises from different views, some from a parking garage overlooking the city skyline and others in the lab drawing what we saw in microscopes. Those exercises taught me to think from different perspectives and to understand how nuanced things can be. For the next few weeks I am using the microscope view. Narrow down. Work out themes, forms, styles, techniques. Ask the three questions before creating: who’s it for, what’s it for, and what change am I trying to make.
In the microscopic view, having a daily direction-setting session helps keep the making on track. All the work done in the small daily creating should complement the overall goal. Once or twice a week, step back to the parking garage and study the larger map. The planning and micro making is the most exciting part to me, and managing things this way keeps the work fresh. Creating is a form of generosity and gratitude. People who care want to see what you will do. Life is far too short not to give the gift of creation.
I hope everyone is having a great summer. Some of the thunderstorms and wind have been terrible. Not to mention the heat. Thank you for following along and supporting Creek Road Pottery. Every comment, visit, and bit of encouragement is most helpful to hear. Soon, I hope to show images of the finished kiln once fully built. Be sure to keep making work that matters for the people who care.
Until next time,
Alford Wayman
Artist/ Owner
Enjoyed this post? Get the Creek Road Pottery Newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month. Subscribe on Substack.
Connect with Creek Road Pottery LLC:
Website | Shop | Collectors Club | The Pin Tool Podcast | Instagram | Bluesky
