A Tour of My Pottery Studio & Recent Exhibition at Make, Hauser & Wirth.

in this week's video i'll finally be giving you a much requested studio tour this space wasn't easy to find when i came back from japan in 2018 i spent almost two years searching for a suitable space and this is it 650 square foot that comprises of the studio this little hallway here a tiny bathroom off to one side and a kitchen it's set in an old industrial laundry and there are still a few remnants from those times be it blocked out windows and arches in the walls all these old swinging doors that are getting increasingly more squeaky over time these stay open most of the time and they're kept open by some carabiners and some rope as for the space itself it's tall there's a big mezzanine that covers one side and then on the other side of the studio is my gas kiln with this chimney that goes up and out through the roof next to the gas kiln is my electric kiln and my air compressor but i'll speak more about those later but let's begin with the gas kiln as it's the largest and probably the most interesting piece of equipment that i have in my studio it's a rhoda kg 340 gas kiln it has a 340 litre capacity and weighs about 800 kilograms and looking back on it i was really lucky about fitting it into the studio is it only just about squeezed in the doorway it's a downdraft kiln so the flames come in from the bottom they go up over the shelves on the top and then the flames are pulled back down through the flues in the bottom which are the pipes you can see in the back of the kiln here the kiln is fueled by a main supply of gas which comes in through this copper pipe which goes through the walls and eventually connects to the kiln's burners down below in the past i've only ever fired my own work in kilns fueled by propane which means you're constantly switching out empty bottles of gas for new bottles of gas so having a mains connection is actually really useful and it's a lot cheaper too the kiln has four burners and i like each of them independently the firings in this kiln take about nine hours to complete and it's controlled entirely manually the reason i use a gas kiln over an electric kiln is that it allows me to fire in a reduction atmosphere which simply put means that i can place the kiln into a specific state during the firing where the fuel is burning inefficiently and there's also a lack of oxygen inside the chamber which causes the fuel to seek oxygen from elsewhere from inside the clay and the glazes and in doing so it creates colours and textures that can be really quite difficult to achieve in an electric kiln and the kiln has served me well so far above its door is a long line of pyrometric cones these fire alongside the pots in the kiln and they slowly melt and bend over in very particular temperatures and really these are what i go by when i'm firing they are what indicate when it's time to stop and while i could just simply throw them away i quite like the idea of keeping them all as an archive and this is what the kiln looks like at peak temperatures at cone 10 or approximately 1280 degrees celsius all of the fumes go up and out of the chimney and surprisingly it really doesn't radiate out that much heat and it is quite noisy but not nearly as noisy as the air compressor that has to be used in tandem to up the gas pressure it doesn't operate all the time but after 850 degrees it goes off every five minutes for 40 seconds i've got used to it over time and i've found that putting a heavy bag of red iron oxide on top of the box makes it a lot less noisy essentially though this provides the low pressure natural gas to have sufficient pressure the air comes out of this blue pipe and travels to each of the four burners each of the two burners is controlled by one valve so it's quite easy to adjust and to give you an idea of just how much i use the machine over 17 firings which is probably around 170 hours the air compressor has been on for roughly 17 hours in total anyway once the firing's complete i usually wait about 36 hours before i can open the kiln i could decrease this time quite drastically i think by opening the dampers and the spy holes but generally i'm not really in that much of a rush you might notice on this jar a flash of oxidization this occurs in very specific small areas right next to the burners and is pretty much entirely uncontrollable which i love as it means the kiln still has a say in some way you'll see more of these flash pots later at the end of the video as i give you a brief tour of the make hauser and worth exhibition i was just in so make sure you wait until the end to see that just to the side of my gas kiln is my shards bucket this is where all my failed pieces go which really isn't that much considering what's here is two years worth and don't worry thankfully this is all going to be collected by a local artist who can reuse it in their own practice so it won't just go to landfill the last thing about the gas kiln is the digital pyrometer this is a probe that goes into the back of the kiln and it reads the temperature during the firing and while it's very useful to tell if the temperature's going up or down it only measures the temperature at a very specific spot inside hence why the pyrometric cones are so important then there's my electric kiln which is a rhoda te200 so far i generally only use this to do my disk firings in so this kiln never really goes past 1000 degrees celsius these kilns are programmable and they can fire automatically which is nice as it means i can disk fire overnight when i'm asleep typically when i'm not using it i'll push it right into the corner and then when i'm firing i'll just pull it out by a foot or two just to give the wires the walls and my air compressor some clearance from the hot kiln it's this that changes the pots from being clay to ceramic it makes the pots porous which means they'll be able to absorb the glazes that i place over them as for ventilation i simply keep one of the spy holes in this kiln open during the firing and i'm never actually in the studio when it is firing up to 1000 degrees and while i can only fit about 100 to 150 pots in my gas kiln depending on the piece's size of course i can squeeze far more into the disc firing as all the pieces can touch at this low temperature in a normal making cycle i'll spend a couple of months throwing and producing work and then i'll do a bunch of disc firings and then a handful of gas reduction glaze firings above the entrance to my studio is a long line of very old glaze tests some long retired and some i really want to visit again another inherited contraption is this clothes source that i can raise and lower from the ceiling it also comes in useful to lift all these packing materials up onto the mezzanine like a small elevator it's up here that i store all of my packing materials for when i do shop updates and ship off all my work across the world like you may have seen in my previous video anyhow it's quite useful actually having it all raised up above the studio itself as it means all the packing materials don't get that dusty then when it actually comes down to using them i give the studio below a really good clean and i chuck all of my boxes and wrapping materials down into the studio it's up here that most of my light comes from and it's also where i store my last big rolls of bubble wrap and bits of wood and cardboard and things like that there's also a few skylight windows which i open up especially when i'm gas firing just to keep the space really ventilated nicely initially when i moved in mezzanine covered this whole space above and it really blocked out all of the light into the studio so we simply slid across the wooden panels and move the ladder to a more appropriate position i guess the next thing we should talk about is my throwing wheel as it's probably where i spend the most time it's a rhoda hmt 500 which has a built-in stool which you can angle and a handy hose which goes straight into my reclaim bucket which really makes cleaning it incredibly straightforward and it's very comfortable actually with wheels in the past i've always had to tape foam onto the seats and things but this wooden stall is surprisingly good this is where i do all my throwing and all my trimming like you'll see in all my other videos and i promise we'll finally get back to some throwing and making in next week's video but i like this wheel a lot it has a big wide splash tray it's mostly very quiet although not as silent as the shimpo whisper and it's all i've used really since purchasing it i'm often asked about the table that i've built on the front of my wheel such as the piece of wood you can see in the background here and i promise you it's probably the most crude contraption you'll ever see is just some pieces of wood screwed together which is then clamped onto the wheel chassis but it does the job nicely it's on to this that i attach my throwing gauge this is another tool i'm asked about all the time this particular one is made by potter and tool maker darren ellis an old friend of mine who i met during my apprenticeship with lisa hammond i'll leave a link in the description below to his online website where he sells these i can't promise they'll be on sale now but i think here's a newsletter you can sign up to and a waiting list as the light changes so rapidly my studio due to the overhead windows i often use this led light to help correct the color and to keep things nice and bright there are lots of similar models but this is a photix nuada s3 video light and it's wonderfully useful as when it's a very shadowy overcast day i can really turn the temperature up and get the colors i'm looking for which means that i have to do less color correction in post not that i do a lot of that anyway and given the choice i will always use natural light and it's actually quite rare that i use this light to film and take photographs with but on a few occasions it's really saved the day as filming pottery can be quite tricky really because the filming doesn't dictate anything it's the clay that does and if the clay is ready to trim and it's a really cloudy day well i have to do it and having a simple light like this can really save the day and they aren't expensive either i'm also asked a lot about my shelfing system which couldn't really be any more simple it's all twin slot shelfing which is simply these brackets that you slot into these wall pieces they're easily drilled into the walls and while they aren't perhaps the most pretty thing they're so incredibly functional that it makes up for it i can constantly change the height which means my pots can really go just about anywhere on my shelves and each shelf can hold approximately 75 kilos so they're incredibly strong another thing i'm asked an awful lot about is my wear boards now i want to clarify this by saying they are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination they occasionally walk so i use both sides to try and stop that as much as possible and they sometimes get moldy but that's easily dealt with with some anti-mold spray anyway these are all 12 millimeter birch ply and this is how i like to position the wear boards when i'm throwing first i pull them back so i can easily place my first pot at the end of the board then as i progress i simply push the boards forward and i can easily position them into the right places as time goes on then when the board of pots is finished i can take it and put it on my shelving system and there's already a stack of boards there waiting to go and generally this is where they'll live i usually have quite a big pile just here on this trestle table i do feel very lucky to have found this space i looked at so many studios that were up a flight of stairs down a corridor some didn't have any water access some were right next to a busy road but it's incredibly peaceful where i am right on the outskirts of london and compared to the studios i was looking at in east london it's a fraction of the price through this arch is my little kitchen area which is mainly just where my water access is where the boiler is and where i store a whole multitude of other things i also have a collection of plants that happily survive in this part of the studio it's also in here where i store a bunch of my raw material for making glazes which is when my gladstone 5-gallon mixer comes in so handy they may be a pretty expensive piece of kit but it really churns through all these raw materials like nothing else plus as it has three supports on it i can simply place it onto the bucket and let it do its thing while i'm doing another job the studio has a simple pitched roof which does mean the sound of the rain is very loud hence why you hear it in my videos so much i've recently been drying out my plasterbacks it's on these that i place my reclaimed clay to dry out once again so i can finally wedge it up into usable material i like to raise mine up on kiln props which airs out to the underside of the plasterbat and the ceramic props work really well as they don't get moldy which wood seems to do almost immediately anyhow these live just slightly out of the way in the studio and when they don't have clay on i'll lean them against the kiln or in the sun so they can dry out and then once my bucket of reclaim is full i'll sponge away the water that's settled on top before giving it just a rough mix i also fling play straight into this bucket when i'm throwing and when i'm trimming so it's very useful to have the bucket right next to my wheel although in an ideal world my plaster bats would also be right next to my wheel so i don't have to drag this bucket around but it's fine it only takes a moment i then roughly mix it and spread it out on the plasterbats and the dry very absorbent plaster will pull out much of the moisture in this clay and when it finally returns to a more usable consistency which can take a couple of days depending on the weather really i'll peel off the slab take it up onto the workbench and wedge it up at the moment i don't own a pug mill but i think it's something that i'll finally purchase this year the shelves in my studio are also filled with many older pieces work that i collect and gather for future shop updates or exhibitions as documenting my work and posting on instagram is such a vital and integral part of my business i always like to keep a few of everything back that way i have things to photograph lots of these pots are also just tests oddities pots that i've accumulated over the last five years or so some might be broken some might be from failed experiments i think every pottery that i've ever been in has had one of these shelves and they really tell such good story of the maker and in many ways i do want to hold on to some archive of my work of course i do need to sell a vast majority stay afloat but i have pieces here from my time in college from my apprenticeships everything and it's a constant reminder of where i've come from and where i'm going some of these things i'll never part with i'm sure and sometimes pots that i really wasn't sure about benefit from staying in the studio and being looked at time and time again things grow on you ideas grow on you and i'd like to keep these pieces around simply as references although they are gradually being included piece by piece into the shop updates that i do a few times a year proudly sitting in the center of the studio is my giant workbench it was one of the first things i built when i moved into the studio and if i'm not spending time on the wheel i'm probably spending time doing something on the workbench here pulling handle blanks against the table's edge or wedging endless lumps of clay it's also a good place to store pots overnight as they dry out to leather hard i often wrap pots up with plastic overnight and leave them here ready to use the next morning i even also use the floor quite a lot when i'm running out of shelf space as inevitably the studio gets so full that i have nowhere to put new pots it's also on the workbench where i do a vast amount of my photography again the setup is really very simple and i end up spending a lot of time in photoshop and light from extending the white backgrounds and color correcting but again this works well enough for me and this is where i do all my product photography for my online shop together with lots of other images that you can find over on my instagram account mainly i think in the long run when i have a bigger space i'd love to have a dedicated area that was just for taking photographs so i'm not constantly building and moving this setup i guess in the long run too i'd love to have land that i can build a wood kiln a soda kiln assault kiln but i think those are all quite long-term goals this is after all my first studio and i'm sure there'll be many more over the years in the centre of my studio there's a big open space which i use generally for all kinds of things it's where i mix glazes and it's also where i store pots overnight like this if i need to put them into some kind of damp press situation or store them over a long weekend without them becoming too dry it isn't pretty but it works and i find that the pots slow down on the floor really dry out much slower than if they were placed on the shelves but that's pretty much all of it i hope this gives you a bit more of an insight into my practice and into my studio but don't go away just yet as i did film some snippets from a few days down in somerset to see the exhibition the impossibility of repetition at make houseroom worth in brewton somerset the show is on from now until july 3rd and i'm showing alongside two brilliant potters jay jun lee and jin e kim my video certainly won't do this justice so if you are able to visit i really recommend it plus you also get to see my friend alexander davos work who's showing in the room opposite for all of us in this room myself jajun and jyn repetition is a huge part in all of our making practices be it in the decoration the forms the shapes and so on it's always such a delight to see my pieces in a physical space that's different from my studio in a space that's clean and white and simple the pots just take on a whole other character they really stand out so much more and it really breathes some fresh air into them after spending months on dusty shelves at home this wool piece is called rinse and repeat which consists of the same form on each shelf altered six times with additions such as handles lids and lines on the far wall on this floating shelf is a series of scorched jars like you may have seen unpacked from the kiln earlier then there are these two sets circle one and circle two made from identical pieces that when arranged in a certain way make a ring from the slotted rims it took me a few attempts until i was able to make a set that i was really happy with as it turns out it was easier to make the enclosed forms in two pieces rather than trying to throw them in one and here are some of jyn's amazing striped pots made from porcelain and coloured terracottas they're just so unbelievably precise it's extraordinary really and then there's the fine tableware by jajun which is just perfect and smooth the glaze feels amazing and it's incredible to think that all of this was made by hand and after seeing all this work in the flesh all this incredibly fine porcelain i'm really quite jealous of the extremities you can push the material and i think it might be time that i make a change relatively soon but we'll see there's still a ton of stoneware in the studio i need to get through anyhow that's more or less it for this week's video stick around for a bit more footage from the exhibition if you like and if you want to inquire about some of the pieces being shown at the exhibition you can get in touch with the gallery to ask thanks as always and i'll see you next week

Channel: Florian Gadsby

Views: 101,507

Rating: 4.960268 out of 5

Keywords: pottery, how to throw on the wheel, how to make pottery, Florian Gadsby, floriangadsby, handmade pottery, wheel throwing, asmr, pottery asmr, ceramics, clay, how to throw pottery, pottery for beginners, wheel thrown pottery, making pottery, handmade ceramics, pottery wheel, pottery studio, pottery tour, pottery studio tour, ceramics studio, pottery workshop, ceramics workshop, clay workshop, potteries, ceramics tour, Florian Gadsby studio, Florian Gadsby pottery, studio pottery

Id: o4Q4LUuMPUk

Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021