We close Cheshire Clay Studios for two weeks at the beginning of August. We go mad, indulge ourselves and see our families on holiday for one of those two weeks (lovely time, thank you). However, the second week of ‘holiday’ is spent frantically refreshing one of the studios. This year it’s the turn of Studio 1 to have a facelift.
Our ever-expanding membership has meant that we’ve had to have a major re-think of how we use our two studio spaces. There’s been a lot of moving of shelving and storage to accommodate another two wheels, taking the total up to eight. We are delighted with the look of the new layout and think it will make throwing a bit more part of studio life as our throwers will no longer be hunched over their wheels while facing a wall.
We’ve moved all the studio bisqued pieces into studio 2, and the finished glazed pieces are now beautifully displayed on the shelves that we’ve built abutting the large glass window that faces out to the entrance corridor, showing off our members’ wonderful creativity to the wider world.
This has freed up a lot of space in studio 1 so that we can continue to seat 12 people comfortably at our two large table areas without them feeling cramped. We are now making studio 2 available for members on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays as well. This has a number of advantages. Studio 2 will be used to handbuild and decorate with underglazes and brushing glazes. Dipping will continue in studio 1. Simply, good old studio 1 will continue to be our ‘messy’ studio, and studio 2 will be our ‘clean’ studio, where members can also eat and drink, while studio 1 continues to be a food-free zone.
This re-arrangement means that we can comfortably seat up to 28 people across the two studios plus 8 throwers. Generally speaking we usually have around 12 people in the studio at any one time, but we are forward planning to expect another four or five, and we are determined to have sufficient space that nobody feels overcrowded. Extremely unusually (in fact, we don’t know of another studio like it) we don’t have a booking system so people can come and go pretty much as they please on member days. It’s worked well for us so far, but we are keeping a close eye on it – especially with wheel use – and it may well be that we might have to put a reservation scheme in place for the wheels if it seems that people are struggling to get onto them.
We’re also very excited about being selected as a Brand Ambassador for the new range of Studioline brushing glazes manufactured in Stoke on Trent by Milton Bridge Ceramic Colours ltd. Liz and Sophie have been beavering away doing multiple test tiles and pots, and we are confident that the results will have enthusiastic potters clamouring to get their hands on them! As with all new products there’s been a long lead time and we are awaiting colour swatches and charts so that we can put the glazes up onto an online shop on our website, so watch this space. 