Today’s studio visit is an update on studio renovations/extensions of which I posted earlier HERE.
As regular readers may know I extended my studio over the last school holidays due to growing class sizes. The extension will be a storage area and a glaze room. In this process my kiln had to be disconnected due to gas bottles needing to be relocated. The reconnection process has taken a little longer than expected, and therefore became a little stressful, due to custom orders from my ETSY shop and class student work building up. However, the delay has perhaps been a little serendipitous. It gave me time to think about needing another kiln, which I did!
I decided I needed a new bigger kiln or another average sized kiln to service my growing business and I thought I should try to purchase one asap so that both kilns could get connected at the same time. I was lucky enough to find one really quickly – and a bargain – by posting a Wanted to Buy in some local Buy Swap & Sell Groups on Facebook. I received a reply quite quickly – a port o kiln which was about thirty years old, but that had never been connected or used…. just sitting in someone’s shed – in new condition!! (rubs hands together).
So my kilns are both getting reconnected tomorrow morning, and then I am going to be firing both kilns back to back to catch up on the past five weeks!!! I am going to be busy. And then I’ll get into doing some making myself!!
The renovation has basically added two open space areas on the side of the existing studio. these spaces have become a glazing room and storage area. The other part of the renovation I love is the new ‘library’ area – perfect for sitting with a cuppa and browsing books or developing ideas in my visual diary. This corner in the existing studio was the old glaze area, but with everything being moved into the new room I could create this cozy space, something I have always wanted to do.
Creating the library cleared a space in a cabinet (where I used to store books) and this has now become a display cabinet for tools and equipment for sale – yes I also sell ceramic supplies and post Australia wide. the postage is included in the prices which are in the online shop on the CLAYMOTION website.
There is still a bit of re-organising and tidying up to do, but here are some pics this far 🙂
Congratulations Dawn it all looks terrific and the new kiln sounds like a good find.. my potter friend, Janet has a porta kiln but hers only has one burner and she finds the firing are a bit uneven – doesn’t stop making some great work. Especially her temuko! hope yours does as well.
Posted by Anna | May 24, 2016, 3:59 pmThanks Anna, yes I haven’t started the new kiln up as yet,I’ll give it a run on the weekend – fingers crossed!
Posted by Dawn Whitehand | May 24, 2016, 6:19 pm