Each piece of Spafford Pottery goes through several general stages when handbuilding or throwing each and every piece. The process starts with making the item out of wet clay by whatever method serves that piece the best. Several pieces can be made at one time and then set aside. When the clay is hard enough to handle but still wet (time for this to occur depends on studio conditions- it can be a half of a day to a day, can be at a logicial time or as insane as 3 am), I then trim each piece and add any attachments like handles and my name to the bottom. The item is then set aside to fully dry. This can take from 2 days to a week depending upon the humidity. Some items need an even slower drying time than this and precautions are taken to slow this time down or else cracks will occur and the item would then need to be recycled. 

When totally dry the items are inspected for a final finishing- sometimes involving damp  sanding off areas while wearing a fashionable mask (silica dust is a bad thing). Once everything is level and fits correctly I load each item into the kiln to be bisque fired. This is the first firing that each item gets and occurs when the clay is the most fragile to handle. The bisque fire allows the clay to absorb glaze without making it "go soggy", as it would if one tried to apply glaze to green ware (thats the technical name for unfired items). I bisque to cone 06 which is approximately 1870^o F. After the kiln cools to room temperature it can be opened. Its quick to fire to that high of a temperature but it takes a long time to cool it down to a safe enough temperature to open it (it takes a full 24 hours to fire a load).

After the items are unloaded the next step is to apply wax on the bottoms of the item. If glaze were to be on the bottom surface of the ware, it would stick to the kiln shelves and be ruined. So wax is carefully applied and allowed to dry. Then comes the process of mixing up the settled buckets of glaze. I control the contents of the glazes by mixing them myself (again wearing a fashionable mask and gloves). I can modify the glazes to suit my needs and correct any flaws that may happen. As an added bonus I can attest that all ingredients are safe in my glazes, if I would purchase them I could not state that as the ingredients are undisclosed.

After glazing, another trip to the kiln, this time fired to 2250^o F (cone 6). After the cool down, the kiln is opened and its either a happy day, like the best Christmas present or utter disappointment because something along the way broke or cracked, crazed or just ran wrong. Total time to get to this stage is 3-6 weeks depending on drying conditions and firing schedules. As you can see, the items are handled MANY times thoughout this process, and along each stage there is plenty of unfortunate mishaps that occur. Those mishaps, depending on the stage of the process are either recycled back into raw clay or hit with a hammer and destroyed. Based upon my standards the items on this site have to conform, anything else is destroyed. Rest assured you are getting high quality at a fair price!