Inside The Ceramic Studio

We make each of our porcelain pieces to order in our ceramic studio. It’s not terribly big, considering the amount of work we make. But it’s home. Quite literally. The studio is attached to our house.  
   
 
    

Techniques

We use three different techniques when making our ceramics.
The technique depends on the piece.
 
 

Slipcasting

Here you see some of our molds. These are used to create our Battuto and Remo collections along with a few of our Bare and Pinch pieces and all of our lighting. While the molds allow us to replicate a shape, each still finds its way to being unique through the finishing processes of trimming, firing and glazing. The original pieces used to create the molds are either sculpted or made on the potter’s wheel, which allows for the artist’s hand to shine through even a cast piece.

Hand Building

We employ hand building techniques when making the Kashmir, Honeycomb and Birch collections and the Bare dinnerware. We start with a large chunk of clay that we put through our slab roller to create thin porcelain slabs. Since we roll the porcelain in between a piece of canvas, we use a metal rib to smooth the top of the clay. This allows us to have clean surface to imprint the textures. But we do leave the canvas texture on the back of the piece. We then cut the clay with a template and either drape it over plaster molds for our bowls, serving pieces and vases or lift the edges with our fingers for our plates and rectangular platters. Once again no two are alike in size or imprint, there is always some variation. And we think that variation that is inherent in handmade ceramics is what makes them extra special.

Wheel Throwing

And sometimes we use the potter’s wheel for more than prototypes...we throw one of a kind pieces.