# Ceramics, Clay, Potter, Hand Building



## Herbie (May 15, 2015)

A search didn't produce anything, so here goes. I'm interested in learning about the availability of clay studios in and around San Miguel de Allende and the Lakeside areas. What firing techniques are common?

I'm a potter that works primarily in stoneware, uses only food safe glazes, and prefers cone 10 wood firing. I also dabble with hand building, making mostly sculptural forms, which are then wood fired.

I currently work out of an awesome clay studio in Baltimore, MD and am thinking about a future retirement in the Central Highlands. Thinking about options with clay, any and all info would be helpful.


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## Zorro2017 (Jan 9, 2017)

IMO The best clay work can be found in or near Oaxaca, not where you are looking but Dona Rosa broke new ground with her black clay. A lot of dignitaries have visited her studio.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doña_Rosa


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## Zorro2017 (Jan 9, 2017)

There is a lot of brown clay there as well, personally I like the brown more but perhaps someone here knows of something where you are looking.


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## Bodega (Apr 20, 2016)

I'm not active in the business, but I do purchase an occasional piece. I've seen kilns in the Oaxaca area and, more so, in Dolores Hidalgo, near SMA. They have all been gas fired; I've yet to see a wood fired kiln. In my opinion, it follows the path of the blacksmith. The wood/coal fired forges/kilns look good and touch the nostalgia nerve, but, for precision temp control and more consistent results, they go with gas.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

They use coconut husks to fire bricks here


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

There is a Natinal School of Ceramics in Tapalapa Jalisco that can give you information. The PR woman is Isadora Cuellar and she is a ceramist who lives in Mexico City. 
Oaxaca is not the top place for ceramics, it is just one of the many states that produce ceramics and it is not the only state producing black ceramics. Chihuahua also is well know for its Mata Ortiz potters and Chiapas has now 2 women producing back pottery .
The National School of Ceramics invited Master Kusakabe from Japan to built smokeless kilns and Master Suzuki has adapted the Japanese kiln to the Mexican artisan needs and lowered its cost fo people wanting to fire around 900 by using bricks from Chiapas which are 2.5 pesos in comparaison to the refractory bricks that cost between 50 and 80 pesos .

Jalisco has a lot of great ceramists in Tonalá and Tlaquepaque , San Juan Evangelista, and it also has several villages who do utilitarian pottery. Guanajuato, , Puebla , Tlaxcala. Metepec in edo Mexico , Michoacan, Oaxaca , Guerrero , Chiapas, Chihuahua, Veera Cruz and many other places produce ceramics from low fired with firing being done under open sky to high fire ceramics fired in gaz and electric kilns... and now we also have smokeless wood kiln in Jalisco, Guanajuato, Metepec, Amatenango, Chiapas and soon to be built kilns in Oaxaca and Michoacan... 
Jalisco is not a bad place to settle if you want to do ceramics.

I am the ambasador for the National School of Ceramics, Tapalapa in Chiaps. Send me your e.mail and I will send you names of people you can contact if you speak Spanish. Isadora speaks English so you probably get information from her as well.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Sorry my answer was about pottery , ceramics etc in general. In your case if you fire at cone 10 you will find most supply you will need in Mexico city. Ferro in Guadalajara and another place in Tonala have supplies but the best source in Mexico city.
Bring most of the equipment you can ship because it is more expensive here. So wether you are in San Miguel or Ajijic does not make a whole lot of difference,, In the Ajijic area you can find some of your supplies in Guadaljara but if San Miguel you can also get things shipped from Mexico.
The kilns for stoneware are gaz or electric. Master Kusakabe kiln can be built if you want to have a wood kiln but you will have to build it with refractory bricks that come from Monterrey or Mexico so depending on the size of the kiln you want it will be expensive. It also has a very tall chimney so you may have permit issues in some areas and since it is a kiln you also may ve permit issues although that one does not produce smoke.

Move whereever you want to because you will find a few ceramists wherever you moveThat kiln is built with a thermometer so they do not use cones as the fire needs to be fed on a regular basis. Try to bring in the most equipment you can move because most of the equipment is imported and expensive.

Most of the states I mention fire at low temperature but you will find good high temperature ceramists in the states that produce low temperature ceramics as well but they are the minority.


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## Anonimo (Apr 8, 2012)

I don't know much about this subject, but you might look around Tzintzuntzan and Santa Fe de La Laguna, Michoacán.


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## Zorro2017 (Jan 9, 2017)

Cilali knows this subject well, an expert. I have traveled this country a lot and some places are just known for a certain thing, one city it might be tile, the next one food, and the next one art. The utilitarian pottery such as cookware is very common close to the border but what I have read that some of it is actually being made in China and shipped here. They must use slave labor to beat the price of labor here and no doubt lead paint is still used.

Oaxaca has some beautiful work as far as the detail goes for display pieces. This small store is not far from Dona Rosa's market.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Utilitarian pieces at low temperature are made in many states, they are great for cooking on a flame or in the oven and break very easily. The op is talking about stoneware quality and that is not common in Mexico.

Santa Fe de la Laguna is firing at low temperature and we are looking at them as one of the places where a kiln could be built.

Tzintzuntzan is all low fired except for Guadalupe Garcia Rios who fires at the low range of the high temperature. She uses hight temperature glazes but her son uses low temperature glazes. Her ex husband Manuel Morales fires at the low range of high temperature.


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## Herbie (May 15, 2015)

I'm trying this again, I wrote a long response the other night and it got dumped when I went to post it, as in lost and irretrievable. I was so mad I had to log off for the night and just walk away. I forgot this was the reason I rarely log-in and post anything on this site. Let's move on.

First of all, thanks to each and every one of you that replied to my post, it is much appreciated.

A special thanks to Citlali, yes, you understand what I'm looking for and obviously know the ceramics world. The following is geared towards Citlali, but any comments are welcome.

I was hoping to find options to wood fire at the upper range of firing, cone 10. I'm primarily a potter but from time to time I do hand built sculptural forms. I prefer to work in a community arts center or rent studio space in a clay center. Citlali, when you refer to supplies are you talking clay, would the places you mention have stoneware clay bodies available? I ask because clay can be very expensive to ship. It sounds like I would be wise to bring my own glazes and if not to bring the chemicals/minerals needed to make my glazes, along with all other tools and materials. 

Part of me has a dream of retiring in the lakeside area or the San Miguel de Allende area and opening up a clay studio. I assume I would have to be outside of town in order to build a Noborigama wood kiln. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to build such a kiln? If so, let me know if it's peso or dollar based. I would need both hard and soft refractory to build such a kiln, as well as cement blocks, etc. Said kiln would have a wood chamber and a soda chamber and fire to cone 10. It would be fired as needed but I wouldn't anticipate many firings per year as it would take a lot of pots to fill it. I'm wondering how expensive it would be to supply it with wood? Do you think wood could be obtained easily and at a reasonable price? Any and all information would be greatly appreciated.

Depending on operating costs I would have smaller electric or gas kilns to bisque and high fire. If electric to cone 6, and gas to cone 10. 

I would have to look into all the laws to find out what and what not I would be allowed to do. Do you think any young Mexican artists would be interested in working in such a studio? I envision being able to supply individual studio space for half a dozen artists. I would probably set up a residency program to bring artists through for 2 - 3 years at a time on a rotational basis. This would provide an artist with studio space and several firing options.

We would have to figure out how they would sell their work. I would want to incorporate a separate gallery space to hold exhibits. Part of each resident artist's rotation would include an individual show to highlight their work. 

Again, this is all a dream but it could certainly become reality, especially if there was any interest from Mexican artists. I've run this by several young artists in the states and basically all of them said it was a great idea and that they would be interested in moving to Mexico for a few years. 

What do you think, is this a crazy idea or something that could possibly work? This would be a non-profit type of adventure, I wouldn't be looking at making any money off the operation. 

I know I would have to go through the whole process of becoming permanente, etc., but this post isn't about that process.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

I am not familiar with a Noborigama kiln what does it do that the Kusakabe kiln does not do or vice or versa?

I can tell you that the Kusakabe medium size kiln would have cost 300 000 pesos here and that is beyond the rich of Mexican artisans.. only th eones interested or doing high fired ceramics who can afford it could build one..So Maestro Suzuki took that design to adapt it to low fire ceramics and came up with a cost of 74 000 pesos which is still high for artisans but doable with some help.

The director of the school has an electric kiln, he does high fired ceramics and says the cost of the electricity is ok.

When I said being supplies I am thinking of the basic equipement to start the sudio. It would be in your interest to use what you can find in Mexico as far as the supplies needed on a daily basis,
Yes I think you could attract Mexican and foreign artists as long as the cost would remain low otherwise the Mexicans would be priced out.

Yes you would also have to check the municipality rules for permits.. by the way do you speak Spanish? Do you know about the Mexican culture? If you do not not you will be at the mercy of facilitators and lawyers who will be happy to relieve you of some nice money..

I suggest you visit the areas you are interested in and speak with ceramists. there. go to Mexico city to visit the couple of supply stores and same in Tlaquepaque and Tonala, I can send you the ame of those stores and can get you in touch wit Mexican ceramists.. Ther eis an interesting lJapanese Mexican lady in Guadalajara who is going to build a kiln from what I heard,, Ill find out more about her project and will let you know...

First meet and visit ceramists and check out the supply places.. take a class from the school that offers seminars on various subjects the teachers have been Europeans and Japanese.. get to know other people with the same interest and you will have a much better feel for what you can and cannot do and the cost. of it..

Go slowly,, that is the way in Mexico...


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Most of the kilns in Mexico are wood kilns and some of them are fired with cow dungs but those kilns are for low fired ceramics like the ones seen in Oaxaca wether brown or black clay,

The gaz kilns can be seen in areas where talavera is done or glazed ceramics. Most ceramics in Mexico is low fired ceramics and that includes glazed ceramics which need between 800 and 1000 degrees to work but that is still low temperature as far as glaze is concerned and that is not what the OP is talking about.
Gaz kilns are used because there is no risk of ashes mixing with the glaze and also the gaz kilns are more efficient that the traditional wood kilns but with the Japanese wood kilns the efficiency is way greater and therefore low and high tempearature kilns can use wood.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

By the way Herbie you can see the modified Japanese kilns in the Escuela Nacional de Ceramica facebook. I was directly involved in the Amatenango , Chiapas one but you can also see the ones from Metepec, Jalisco and Guanajuato,, you will see some of the traditional kils used in Mexico as well as the firing without kilns.


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## Herbie (May 15, 2015)

Citlali, my Spanish is weak at best, I'm trying to work on it through an online course. For now it would be best for me to communicate in English. I have a decent understanding of the Mexican culture and Mexican people.

The Kusakabe is basically a modified Anagama kiln which is a single chamber wood fired kiln. The Kusakabe uses a down draft fire which would push all of the wood ash out on the claywork and pass it through the chamber. When you stoke a traditional Anagama the wood drops to the bottom of the fire box and the flame along with some of the ash rises and passes through the chamber.

The Noborigama is a two or three chamber wood fired kiln. The Kusakabe fires in a day and a half. The Noborigama fires in about 24 hours, or a day. The beauty of a Noborigama is that you can double or triple your capacity but it only takes 25% more wood. With a Noborigama you can have a wood chamber and a salt chamber which produce two different surfaces in one firing. The Noborigama produces very little smoke until you put it into reduction. While in reduction it will belch a bit of smoke.

All three kilns, Kusakabe, Anagama, and Noborigama are Japanese kilns, the design of the latter two goes back to the 5th century or so. 

I would build my own kilns, whether gas or wood, it would be a matter of getting my hands on the proper refractory, which sounds doable. Do you think I would be able to find Mexican artists that would be interested in high firing? It sounds like the traditional Mexican potter is truly doing a low firing. Is the 800 to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius? If Fahrenheit they don't even hit the charts here in the states. Cone 10 is a bit north of 2300 degrees F.

Great advice to start spending time in Mexico to see what's going on.

I'm going to PM you my email address, thanks for the info and all of your help. Very much appreciated.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

sorry I am speaking Celcius .. I am French so I am used to Celcius and in Mexico we use celcius as well ..
Yes the traditional Mexican firing is done at low temperature, actually the prehispanic pottery was done without any kiln at all.
Thanks for the explanations on the various Japanese kilns.
Yes , I believe you can get Mexican artists interested in a studio but I do not know if Ajijic or San Miguel would be the best place.. Mexico City probably would be better for the Mexican artists but I may be wrong, I just know of more artists there than in Jalisco, that would be a question of doing some research.


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