Journal

14 October 2026 · Glazes

On ash glazes and the colour of rain

A wet autumn changes the ash we collect from the wood stove: more grit, more unburnt carbon, a slightly greyer tone. For two seasons we tried to correct this with recipes, measuring and re-measuring until the notebook was full of numbers that no longer matched the results.

The fix, in the end, was to stop correcting. We now sieve the ash twice, mix by volume rather than weight, and fire a test tile from every batch. The glazes are less uniform than before and considerably better to look at.

There is a lesson here about the difference between a recipe and a practice, but it is late and the kiln is still at 400 °C.

2 September 2026 · Workshop

A bench for the kiln room

The packing table had been a door on two trestles for four years. Replacing it took a weekend, one reclaimed beech beam and three attempts at a wedged through-tenon that ended up hidden anyway.

Dimensions, for the record: 1900 × 620 mm top, 860 mm high, with a lower shelf for boxes and the inevitable collection of glaze buckets that do not belong there.

18 July 2026 · Commissions

Twelve bowls, twelve mornings

A small commission for a café on Karl-Heine-Straße: twelve deep bowls for soup, glazed to survive a dishwasher that runs four times a day. We threw six each morning for two weeks, which is the only way we have found to keep the walls even.

Numbers 3 and 8 are slightly different from the rest. They are also the ones we like best.

29 May 2026 · Materials

Why we stopped buying ready-mixed clay

Not for purity, and certainly not for convenience. A pallet of ready-mixed stoneware arrives plastic-wrapped, travels 600 km and sits long enough to need re-wedging anyway. Buying dry body and mixing it here takes an afternoon and a borrowed mixer.