An hours drive
to the nearest community or public ceramics studio. Although fairly local, the pottery studios at Clay Haus and Indian River Clay still took an hour to get to. Driving this distance was the trigger point for us to plan bringing our new hobby home. After both Zachary and Peter had completed their first set of beginner classes it was obvious the new-fround passion for cermaics was more than a passing fad. So, we had a ton of research to do, and decisions to make about an investment in our own pottery equipment. After all the average 3 bedroom condo (where we live) really isn’t setup to be a studio with out some pre-planning and a little re-organization.
Studio Space
First we needed to decide on a space for our studio. Play with clay as one might expect can get messy. Especially when mud starts flying from a wheel zooming around at 100 reolvutions per minute. Also, there was the consideration of the potential hazards of dry clay. As anyone who has worked with clay before will tell you, the clay dust is dangerous when inhaled, should only be cleaned up with a wet mop or sponge, and gets everywhere. We really didn’t want it covering covering everything in our home. We considered a space in our dinning area, the guest bedroom, and swapping out the breakfest-nook in our kitchen for a wheel – all terrible ideas for us as messy potters. We eventually settled on re-arranging our garage to accomodate a bench and the wheel. While the space still technically allows us to park a car in the garage, we haven’t because the wheel and studio have been in near constant use.
We cleared out about a third of our garage to accommodate the studio. We moved our bike storage, SCUBA storage, and tool shelving to make some space. In doing so we emptied boxes of items that we’d forgotten we had, and now have to list on ebay, donate, or find a new place to store. The space still felt like the corning of our garage, but a tin of paint and a couple of hours work and the studio space had a calming green wall – okay well not calming green, greenscreen green. Planning we in advance to take photos and potentially create content for this website, YouTube, Instagram and other social media outlets.
Studio Equipment
Just having space to play with clay is only half the equation. You need the equipment, especially if your throwing pottery on the wheel and plan on firing it yourself. But a quick glance at any cermaics supply store or website and you’ll find the equipment isn’t cheap, but then again what hobby is cheap? New pottery wheels start around $1000 (although there are cheaper beginner and toy wheels on Amazon). Slab rollers for hand building are $500 or more. A kiln to fire your pottery starts near $2000 and runs as high as your budget would allow, plus there are costs associated with hooking it up to the electrical panel and ensuring you have furniture to use it. Finally, a bench or table to work on is a must, and actually ends up being one of the cheaper items. As such, depending on your style, budget, and space the equipment and the costs can range wildly.
The Wheel
After a few months of research, trying different wheels at the other studios and counting our pennies we decided to move forward on the wheel purchase. First we checked local classifieds, Facebook Market Places and a few others to see if anyone was selling their second hand equipment. Unfortunately, it was all either too far away, in too poor a condition, or already had a buyer. Our only option at the time was to buy new. We decided on an entry-level wheel at almost the lowest price point possible – The Clay Boss by Speedball. The wait to get the wheel was excruciating. COVID-19, shipping delays and production hold-ups meant a waiting period of 10 weeks before it would ship. Unfortunately, additional delays meant it was almost 20 weeks before we received the wheel… but the wait was worth it. There is nothing that will increase your skill at throwing pottery on the wheel faster than spending more time behind the wheel throwing. Not just a couple of hours at a class, but regular time every couple of days and while we’d still rate our ceramics still as ameture, the difference having a wheel at home to practice at our own pace is immeasurable.
The Bench
Out of all the studio equipment we felt we needed for our home ceramics studio the workbench was perhaps the easiest. Our first thought was an old table so we headed down to our local Habitat for Humanity store to checkout the options. The most important feature of any workbench for ceramics work is stability, especially under the pressures and strain of heavy bags of clay and the action of wedging. Unfortunately even second hand sturdy tables were expensive so we turned to YouTube for inspiration and decided to build our own. The beauty of the DYI solution was a workbench exactly the size we needed, with the surface we wanted, and we were event able to add casters to make it mobile. The final price $150 for the perfect workbench. In time, we think we might make another!
The KILN
By far the biggest cost of any home ceramics studio setup is the kiln. Without it, all your making is cool and artistic dried mud shapes that are incredibly fragile. In the world of kilns there are a wide variety, and unlike wheels, there was no shortage of second-hand kilns in available locally. Unfortunately as new potters, we didn’t know much about kiln technology and were hesitant just to pick up any old second hand kiln. We knew we wanted to start with an electric kiln that we could operate in our home cermics studio – although we’re fond of alternative firing techniques an oxidation kiln seemed like the right place to start. Luckily for us, Indian River Clay were eliminating one of their own electric kilns, an Amaco Ex-270 with Kiln Sitter, and parted with it for a very reasonable price. The kiln was actually far easier than anticipated to dismantle, transport and reassembly than we thought and was quickly setup and awaiting an electrical connection in the studio.
It took a while to get some electricians out to see if our electrical panel would allow the connection of the kiln and get a quote for the work. We’d already figured it would, but since none of us are electricans we thought it best to have a professional make the determination and complete the work. After getting a few quotes, and picking the cheapest electrics were installed and the kiln finally tested, although not a full firing. The kiln turned on and started to warm up quickly with all elements glowing a little red. It was a relief that we hadn’t damaged it in transport. Now we just needed kiln furniture…
Studio Tools