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Welcome to our "Factory"

Though we have some equipment that makes the operation a little more efficient, our factory is little more than a studio carved out of the corner of a shop area. If you've never indulged in ceramic arts before, the steps below will give you some insight into how our pots are made.

bloom

Step 1

Molds are filled with liquid earthenware slip. The plaster molds absorb liquid from the slip filling the cavities of the molds. When enough moisture has been absorbed by the mold, the remaining slip is drained from the cavity leaving a "skin" of earthenware lining the mold.

greenware

Step 2

The "skin" continues to dry forming a leather-like clay. As the leather dries further, it shrinks away from the sides of the plaster molds and can be removed. Within a couple of days, the leathery clay has dried to become a fragile, brittle clay body resembling dried mud. This "greenware" as it is referred to must be sanded and cleaned to remove any seams left by two-piece molds, and imperfections left by the imprint of the molds.

kiln

Step 3

The cleaned greenware is loaded into a kiln and gradually heated over the course of several hours to over 2000 degrees F. This process of "firing" the greenware transforms the clay body to a hardened and porous ceramic bisque.

glaze

Step 4

The bisque is now painted with a variety of glaze combinations. Each piece is carefully layered with coats of color and thoroughly dried. The pieces must then be kiln fired again to transform the glaze into the glass-like finish that seals the bisque and cures the colors. Notice that the bottom areas of the inserts shown at left are not glazed, leaving the porous bisque exposed.

halves

Finished!

The resulting violet pots, in a rainbow of colors provide a reservoir to hold water, and a porous bisque area that allows water to wick through to the roots of the violet planted in the insert.

Pots with decals applied must be fired one more time to permanently fix the decal to the glazed surface. The decals can then be enhanced with permanent texture paste to add a dimensional surface to the decal picture.

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