Clay Mentality
My Home Studio
My home studio isn't a single room, it is spread among many places in my home. My throwing, glazing, firing and ceramic storage all occur in different areas.Clay Storage
My clay is stored in a bin in my basement. I keep the clay in its original bags to keep it moist, as well as to keep various clays from mixing with each other.Slab Roler
I have only recently had a need for slabs, so I had to find a way to do this at home, without the need for a table the size of my room. I have started using a small table covered with plastic for this, it works great. I have a roler that my mother gave me for Christmas that does a great job of not sticking to the clay.Wheel
My wheel is used in the corner of my bedroom. My wheel is a Creative Industries Artista wheel. The Artista is very portable, it sits on its folding leg set and weighs under 30 lbs. The flexibility of this wheel has allowed me to get into ceramics in a fairly significant way. I enjoy taking the wheel outside during the spring to work on things, try that with one of the Brent "portable" wheels weighing in at 75lbs!
Drying Areas
I like to dry my pieces in several areas, I start out on the kitchen counter, it is a convienient spot to land with my pieces as soon as they are off the wheel, I don't have to jossle them to the degree I would if I were going to move them to the basement immediately after throwing. Once they are leather hard they will go to my shelf in the basement for drying, moist storage (covered with plastic), or they will return to the wheel for immediate cleaning and finishing.
Kiln
Meet the Olympic 129 kiln. This kiln is 11" x 9", for a total of .58 cubic feet of firing capacity. The kiln is in the basement on its standard stand, it operates on 120V of power, with a peek amperage of 16 amps. The kiln will go to a maximum of Cone 6, although I usually don't fire it beyond Cone 04.
Glazing
Who needs their own glaze room? Certainly not me! I use a combination of my desk (covered with plastic and a paper plate) as well as a portable dining table to do my glazing. I use a paper plate to hold and spin my pieces, and I use washable plastic cups (a hard white plastic) to brush my mixed glaze from.Glaze Mixing
Mixing glazes is not something to be done in areas where food is prepared for consumed. For this reason I have set up a table in the basement on which I can prepare my glazes, as well as do some of my glaze application work. At present I don't have a storage location for any of my glaze chemicals or my homemade glazes.Finished Ware Storage
My finished pieces are stored in the basement on a seperate shelf from the greenware, beside the kiln. [image of pieces]Slurry/Reclaiming
When I am finished with my water bucket on the wheel, it is usually filled with a lot of clay. I dump this bucket in my larger 5-gallon slurry bucket in the basement, so that I may later run the slurry through a sieve to reclaim the clay, which may be reworked until it is wheel ready, at which time the proccess starts over.