A Look Inside
Our Studio
The Clay
Here at Solana Beach Pottery we choose to source our raw materials from Laguna Clay. We love that they are based in the United States just like us and have been providing the ceramics community with high quality goods since 1976!
We took our time playing with a wide variety of different clay mixes and eventually fell head over heels for their Cone 5-6 midfire clays. Our go to favorite is a very dark clay called “B3”. When combined with our unique glazes the resulting colors truly pop and come to life! Most of our work is done with B3.
In addition, we love to work with “Speckled Buff”. We found that Speckled buff has proven itself as an excellent choices for our everyday functional kitchenware.
“Speckled Buff” originally caught our attention due to its visually appealing warm toned tan/brown color range. It has a low sand and grog content that ensures a smooth, trustworthy finish that we can count on to look top-notch every time. Fun fact: this variety also contains tiny particles of Iron that burst after our second high temperature firing! This process results in the customer favorite “speckled” finish that peeps through our lighter glazes. Pretty cool, right?
“B3” is a very dark clay that fires black when fully completed. The resulting finish works beautifully with our Ocean color pallete of glazes creating truly stunning art pieces!
What about the glaze?
Glazes are what create the shiny colorful finishes on our artwork. Ceramic glazes are not paint, but are actually ground rock and minerals! As such, glazes share many of the same properties as clay itself. Hence, they can be readily blended together. Their thickness or viscosity can be controlled which further affects their appearance when fired. Color will appear only after firing. When applied to the clay body, glazes absorb into the pores of the clay. During the firing process the clay and glaze become fused into one, generating a beautiful unified final creation. Due to this process, each piece comes out of the kiln with a unique personality that ensures no two pieces are exactly alike!
From a Ball of Clay into a Work of Art
Watch the video to the left to experience the special life cycle of our pieces. Starting as nothing more than a hunk of clay to where they end up as a beautifully unique piece.
