Tag: gas fired ceramics

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Shipping and Mishandling: From the Digital Store to Your Doorstep

Anyone who’s flown with a commercial airline before knows the dread that accompanies handing off your luggage to the disgruntled employee who chucks your bag onto the conveyer belt without blinking. A similar leap of faith occurs with online shopping, when you enter your credit card number and simply trust that the product will arrive safely and soon.

Precarious pots.

Joel’s pottery is pretty tough. His mugs survive being washed and handled tens of times a day at the Local Blend. I won’t disclose how often my own Cherrico pottery cups get yanked out of the cupboard to be filled with wine and clanked down onto a coaster. Joel himself has no qualms piling up pots for one of his signature #potsonpots moments.

But that airport bag woman, that USPS postman, they just don’t care. One of my intern duties is prepping the pots sold online for their journey through this uncaring world. The last thing Joel wants is for a customer – be it a mother in Iowa or a celebrity like Ellen Degeneres – to open that package and find a broken pot. Not only does this make for poor customer service, but it also wastes time and money because a new pot must now be packed and shipped free of charge.

Yep, we really did send pots to Ellen. (And Neil, too!)

Another way Joel saves money in the shipping process is by following his blunt philosophy of: “I hate buying things.” Thankfully the unavoidable exceptions to this rule (tape, labels, a box cutter, etc.) are relatively cheap. Other materials he can find completely free.

The first step of shipping a pot is wrapping it in newspaper. We use regular old newspapers (free!) or a large roll of blank newsprint Joel got from a friend who works for a local paper (also free!). The last step of shipping a pot is putting it in the box. As many frequently-moving college students know, liquor boxes are a must-have. They’re plentiful, a convenient size, sturdy, and – say it with me now – free. The downside to using liquor boxes is they must be turned inside out because it is illegal for regular folks like us to ship in liquor boxes.

You are, of course, free to drink said liquor out of Joel’s pots.

What about the middle step? Besides frugality, Joel also pursues sustainability in the packing process – in the form of hundreds of egg cartons.

A few years ago, Joel connected with a local farmer named Everett. Everett had a deal with the recycling center to take the egg cartons they received. (Brief PSA: Even though many of them are made from post-consumer materials, egg cartons are not recyclable. Huh. Who knew?) As a chicken farmer, Everett used some of the cartons himself, but the rest he kept in his garage in massive stacks, knowing someone would have a use for them one day.

Carting those cartons.

Joel was that someone. Egg cartons are made to transport a product much more fragile than his pottery. They provide great cushioning and quickly fill up the box’s empty space without adding very much weight, which is paramount when paying for postage. Plus, two van loads of egg cartons cost Joel only one box of pots for Everett.

Mutual sustainable practices such as this are not new to our community. When Richard Bresnahan was founding the St. John’s Pottery, he was drawn to the economical habits of the monastery, especially the carpenters:

“He discovered they rarely threw anything away and carefully salvaged doors, windows, paneling, fixtures, and other hardware when structures were razed or remodeled. In the hands of Benedictine carpenters, such discards were given new life.” – Matthew Welch. Body of Clay, Soul of Fire. St. John’s University Press, 2001. Page 52.

Let’s say you decide to purchase a pot from Joel’s online store. (Maybe you entered his Shark Tank Pottery Cup Giveaway, and you wanted to give your anticipated prize cup a companion.)

I receive your order confirmation and find the corresponding pot. Inside a box which once protected bottles of Jameson, I build a nest of Everett’s egg cartons. The newspaper-wrapped pot gets snugly squeezed in and is topped off by more cartons.

Finally, I close the lid, without taping it for now, and shake that box like I’m a USPS delivery woman chucking it onto your doorstep because it’s the middle of January and it’s 40 below and I want to get back into my truck ASAP. If I don’t feel anything moving in there, I’ve done my job right. All the package needs now is tape, labels, and a lift to the post office.

A few days later, you’ll get to open that box and see your trust in online shopping fulfilled.

Shipping Packing Egg Cartons Joel Cherrico Pottery Pots Mug
Sweet, safe success!
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Gas Firing Stoneware Pottery at Cone 10: Natural Variations in the Copper Red Glaze

My most recent gas firing produced some amazing color variations. The kiln was filled top to bottom with pots only glazed in my Copper Red glaze. About half of the pottery had great red colors, ¼ had great red but with color variation, and the remaining ¼ were mostly green, pink or gray.  The natural gas flame paints the glaze surface, and potters are blind to this process.

Thanks to my intern Samantha Thury for shooting these images. I many never know exactly how to produce the reddest of reds, but here are some of my guesses:

Bright red/red-orange: consistent reduction and temperature throughout the firing, slower flame path, less oxygen entering the kiln.

Burgundy: heavier reduction. Often gradates to violet, black and then clear.  Seen in areas of the kiln where uneven reduction causes flame to become trapped, and then simultaneously over-reduce and oxidize different areas of the same pot.

Gray-Pink: somewhat of a mystery…consistently seen on the left side of this kiln, and in certain other areas of the kiln. The flame could be slower, causing more reduction. Perhaps there is heavier reduction during a certain point in the firing. This color is often seen next to bright red, but rarely seen next to clear. This could mean that reduction is achieved before cone 5, but perhaps too much reduction is achieved.

Gray: transition color mostly seen from bright red/burgundy to clear, but seen here on a more red/pink to clear transition.

Clear: oxidized. The bottom shelf of most kilns usually results in clear, sometimes with hints of red or violet. Achieving medium reduction before cone 5 and through cone 10 could eliminate clear. I also see clear closest to the burner ports and target bricks, where the flame path is faster and more turbulent.

For all you potters interested in producing your own Copper Red glazes, check my previous blog post for my glaze recipes and firing techniques:

Copper Red Glazes: The Elusive Bright Red Pottery

Also check out “Copper Red Glazes: A Guide to Producing These Elusive Glazes” by Robert Tichane. Read the book, then re-read it! It’s been an enormous help in developing my red, and especially my firing techniques.

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Glazing Handmade Ceramics at Cone 10: Painting with Fire

While I use brushes for much of my glazing decoration, the kiln does just as much painting as me. Unlike painters, potters have to give up some control of their artwork by using fire to finish the surface.  I brushed iron stain onto the rim of the mugs below, then the iron dripped down the walls during the firing.

Each pot is first dipped in a bucket of glaze. I chose glazes that move and drip during the firing. The image below shows how I brush colorants like iron or cobalt onto the surface.  This adds color contrast, and encourages drips and movement.

After glazing, my pottery is loaded into a natural gas kiln. This is basically a huge oven with no windows that heats to about 2400 degrees F. for about 12 hours.  After 2 days of cooling, I open the kiln with fingers crossed, hoping that the “kiln gods” gave some good colors to the pots.

     

The images below show how I use iron, cobalt and copper stains to add color and movement. I brushed them on as a vertical line, then the stains melt down the pot during the firing.  This big pot barely fit in the kiln- we had to take out a few of the floor bricks!

     

The Copper Red glaze is very responsive to the flame path in natural gas kilns.  The gaseous atmosphere produces red colors, while the clear/green colors show up where the pot was more oxygenated.  The flame naturally paints the glazed surface.