Glaze Workshop at Continental Clay

Amaco Glaze Workshop led by Diana Faris

I spent last Friday, December 5th, working with a group of potters at Continental Clay in Minneapolis. Continental Clay hosted an Amaco Workshop to explore a sampling of the vast variety of glazes they offer. The morning workshop focused on low-fire clay and glazes, the type I use in the classes I teach. There are over 60 classroom lesson plans included on the Amaco website and two of these were chosen for this workshop. The first was a cubist style slab-built human portrait project.

cubist clay portrait project

We got right to work, the leader of the workshop explaining as our hands kept busy. I was so absorbed in my own piece that I forgot to even look up and see what else was going on until one of the other participants asked to photograph my figure. It snapped me out of my world and so I then walked around the room myself, happy to see all the creative ideas manifesting themselves onto the slabs. We used colored underglazes directly onto the clay, not even waiting for it to dry. That felt strange since I am not accustomed to using colored slip and instead wait to decorate until after the first firing. I am curious to see how well the colors take after I fire it up. This might be a good project to include in the next quarter's syllabus.

majolica tile project

We quickly moved onto the second lesson plan of majolica styled tiles. I was especially excited for this since my favorite city in the world is Granada, Spain, once a moorish town that is plastered wall to wall with majolica tiles and pottery. Majolica is a technique of glazing with a tin-based white glaze and then brushed with patterns of color on top. Even though I was working as fast as I could, there was not time to finish getting all the colors onto it. Thankfully I was able to take my glaze palette home to finish it.

salt jar with 'Potter's Choice' glazes

I then rushed over to the martial art class I teach in St. Paul, knowing I would miss the first part of the afternoon workshop. But I was able to dive right into the mid-fire glaze session going on when I headed back. For this workshop we were asked to bring some of our own pots and sample tiles to experiment on with the Potter's Choice collection of glazes. This collection is really great because when combining these glazes, not only do the results differ enormously but they flow and blend beautifully, something until recently was only possible with high fire glazes. The poor girl next to me was assuredly horrified as I think I got more on my hands and face than on my pots as my brushes flailed about, trying to get all my pieces glazed before the session ended. She was very kind though and we had fun laughing at the scenario.

Amaco Glaze Workshop at Continental Clay Company

Besides all the fun with the hands-on projects, I learned quite a bit about the business end too. I hadn't realized Continental Clay was a family-owned company with such endearing owners. Those I met throughout the day were super friendly and seemed to have a lot of fun together; it made me wish I were part of their clan. And the building is much bigger than you can tell from the retail front. The shop goes on and on down the entire block with rooms for each step of their work. A couple I talked to there said that 'back in the day' it was the Honeywell factory where a friend of theirs used to work. It is a neat old industrial space to be in with a lot of history. I love that these buildings are still being put to good use.

One of the owner's daughters told me they will be having more workshops like this in the future. I couldn't have been happier with the day's workshops, and so hearing about the possibility of more was that much more exciting. Spending time with other potters is inspirational for me. Discovering new techniques for teaching is a gift for my classes. And staying on top of new products keeps things fresh. I am so thankful for having been given this opportunity. A sincere thanks to both Continental Clay and Amaco.