Welcome

Making a teapot is said to be the mother of all challenges. I admit it's tough, but it's also the most rewarding challenge of them all. When you make a teapot, you're focusing on functionality and technical skills. It's all about function and purpose first.

I’ve made a video how those treasure boxes with ice crackle glaze start their journey from a lump of clay into a final functional form.

Brushing glaze I have learned a trick – I use potter’s wheel to spin the bowl, a cheap large enough slip trailer to feed the brush with glaze and a fan brush to give an even finish.

Not all is visible to our naked eye. There is totally another world when looking close to the things we can hold in our hands.

This snowflake glazed (or ice crackle glazed) platter did not come out from the kiln in one piece. And honestly, I am happy it did not withstand the firing, it gave me another opportunity.

The main tools in the middle - those I carry with me always, wherever I go those come with me. Those do the main job and the rest just help them out – my two hands.

Some say that potters are most unhappy people because they fail to get the expected results so often. I say potters are happiest people because every making and firing is full of surprises to be glad of.

Sometimes, instead of a jar I throw a vase as a warmup, and sometimes I make vases also deliberately, throw they are not my everyday forms to make.

I often say that lid and the body of a ceramic jar need to sing together. Every lid as its own tone what they make. In this 6-minute video I show how I make the final tuning to my lidded jars.

The look resembles a tree trunk or a dried earth, which it actually is. The effect is achieved with drying the outside of the body rapidly with a help of sodium silicate and a torch. Made from the Spanish black stoneware clay and the texture is filled with white engobe