LENZ CERAMICS        

After preparing the clay by whacking it enough to make the house shake the clay is placed in the center of the wheel- and that's where the fun begins! 

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Throwing a pot is fascinating to watch and seemingly effortless, but anyone who has had a go will know that it is much, much harder than it looks!

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Pottery takes time.

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In order to be fired a pot needs to be bone dry - otherwise you would create perfect explosions with the water in the pots turning to steam!

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Especially in our lovely Scottish island weather it can take weeks for a pot to thoroughly dry.

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The bigger and thicker the pot the longer it takes.

My first firing - the "bisque" firing exposes the pots to a temperature of 930°C.

It's purpose, to put it simple, is to turn mud into stone.

After this firing you can't dissolve the pot in water any more. From now on it is a different material!

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At this stage the claybody is sturdy enough to handle and glaze but still has enough porosity to soak up any glaze you put on it.

I can now glaze and paint the pots and get them ready for their last stage before being born a finished pot to enrich our lives.

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I can't rush this phase: I have thousands of little dots to colour in, stripes to paint, lines to fill and

finally covering it all with a glaze resistant wax so the colours keep their vibrant hue.

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I also make all my glazes here in my workshop, which is a whole story in itself...

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At long last I stack all the glazed pots neatly on the kiln shelves- they must not touch each other!

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The firing goes up to 1240°C and takes 12 hours.

I can open the kiln two days later.

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