Aster & Kiln

Stoneware studio · Marvila, Lisbon

Aster & Kiln

The studio is two: Aster, who throws, and a gas kiln, which decides. On the wheel right now is 1.8 kg of red stoneware. Scroll, and it becomes a celadon vase.

The clay is off-centre

The making of AK–26

  1. Centre

    Centre it first

    1.8 kg of red stoneware, wedged until the air is out, thrown down hard on a wet wheel. Then the dull part, which is most of it: cone it up, press it down, until it stops wobbling.

    Clay 1.8 kg · Water 24 %

  2. Open

    Thumbs in the middle

    Press down to make a well, then pull the floor out to width. A needle pushed through the base says when to stop: ten millimetres, or the foot cracks in the kiln.

    Floor 10 mm · Wheel slows to 140

  3. Pull

    Three pulls, no fourth

    Squeeze the wall at the base and walk the bulge of clay up to the rim. Each pull leaves it taller and thinner. A fourth would make it collapse, so there isn't one.

    Wall 27 → 10 mm

  4. Shape

    Belly, neck, lip

    A pear-wood rib pushes the belly out from inside. Both hands collar the neck back in. The lip is rolled over on itself, because a thin lip chips.

    Thrown at 355 mm

  5. Trim

    Next morning, upside down

    A night under plastic makes it leather-hard. It goes back on the wheel rim-down and a loop tool cuts the foot ring. Most of what comes off is weight you would feel in your hand.

    Trimmed off: 410 g

  6. Glaze

    Bisqued, dipped, counted to three

    A week drying, a first firing to 1000 °C, then into the celadon bucket for a count of three. The foot is wiped clean, or it glues itself to the kiln shelf.

    Raw glaze 0.6 mm

  7. Fire

    Fourteen hours to 1280 °C

    Slow through 573 °C, where the quartz in the clay changes shape. From 1000 °C the burners starve the flame of air, which turns the iron in the glaze green. When cone 9 bends over, it's done.

    1. 80 °C/h to 600
    2. 150 °C/h to 1000
    3. Reduce, 60 °C/h to 1280
    4. Hold 15 min
    5. Cool, door shut, 36 h

  8. Unpack

    Two days later, at 60 °C

    Celadon pooled green in every throwing ring, iron speckle, a brown break along the lip. It shrank twelve per cent on the way to 312 mm.

    AK–26 · Bellied vase · €760

Spring firing · April

Six pieces, one of each

Everything from the April kiln load that came out right. When they're gone, they're gone. The next firing is in June.

  1. AK–21

    Moon jar

    Tejo celadon

    Thrown in two halves and joined at the belly. The seam is still there if you look.

    H 296 · Ø 300 mm

    €1,450

  2. AK–22

    Bottle, long neck

    Iron tenmoku

    Black where the glaze pools and rust where it runs thin over the shoulder.

    H 342 · Ø 160 mm

    €620

  3. AK–23

    Tall cylinder

    Milk shino

    Shino flashes orange wherever it runs thin. You can't plan where.

    H 384 · Ø 132 mm

    €540

    Reserved

  4. AK–24

    Wide bowl

    Olive ash

    Wood-ash glaze that keeps moving in the kiln. Some of it ends up on the shelf.

    H 113 · Ø 342 mm

    €480

  5. AK–25

    Tea bowl

    Milk, cobalt bands

    Banded with cobalt on the wheel, then pushed slightly out of round.

    H 93 · Ø 125 mm

    €160

  6. AK–26

    Bellied vase

    Celadon

    The one you just watched being made.

    H 312 · Ø 198 mm

    €760

Packed in a double box and posted from Lisbon. EU 4–6 days, UK and US 7–10.

The studio · Marvila, east Lisbon

The bread ovens left in 1994. The kiln went in where they stood.

Aster has worked here since 2017, in a former bakery two streets up from the river. One kick wheel, one gas kiln, eleven glazes mixed on site, and a wall of windows that faces the Tejo.

The light moves across the work table all day, which is the only reason anyone photographs pots at four in the afternoon. Scroll this section and you're watching the AK–26 sit through a day of it.

Wheel
Kick wheel, older than the studio
Kiln
Gas, reduction, 0.4 m³
Firings
Nine a year
Output
About 300 pieces leave each year. The rest go back in the clay bin.

Commissions and visits

Every commission starts as 1.8 kg of this.

Commissions

Tableware for a restaurant, a pair of lamp bases, one large jar for one particular corner. Tell Aster what it's for and roughly how big, and a drawing comes back within a week.

Ten to fourteen weeks from drawing to door, because clay doesn't hurry. The deposit comes off the final price, and comes back in full if you don't like the drawing.

Saturday visits

Two hours, six people, every second Saturday. Watch a kiln being loaded, throw one pot yourself, and take nothing home: it has to dry for a week, so it's posted to you after the next glaze firing.

The address comes with the booking. Bring clothes you don't mind.