Hollins Mill Pottery · est. 2016 · cone 6, oxidation

Thrown, not manufactured.

The vessel beside these words is being thrown right now — drawn live in code, the way every real one is pulled up from two pounds of wet stoneware. We make about two hundred pieces per firing. When they sell out, you wait for the next kiln. So do we.

Shop Firing No. 48 How a pot happens
Firing No. 48 — kiln loads July 14 reaches 2,232 °F on July 15 door opens July 17 orders ship July 20, wrapped in last Tuesday's newspaper

01 — The shelf

What survived the kiln.

Every vessel below is drawn in code from its real throwing profile. Drag any pot to spin it — the speckle is in the clay, not the glaze.

02 — The process

Five weeks, four verbs.

  1. Wedge

    Every lump is spiral-wedged forty times to chase out the air. One missed bubble becomes a small explosion at 1,800 °F. We count out loud.

  2. Throw

    Centering takes a year to learn and a breath to do. The walls come up in three pulls. A fourth pull is greed, and greed makes the rim wobble.

  3. Trim

    A day later, leather-hard, each pot is flipped and its foot is carved with a bent steel loop. This is where a heavy pot becomes a light one.

  4. Fire

    Thirteen hours to cone 6, two days to cool. We do not peek. Opening a hot kiln to look is how you meet a pile of expensive gravel.

03 — The studio

Two people, one wheel,
a kiln named Doris.

KILN is Mara Ellison and Petra Voss, working out of the old rope room at Hollins Mill. Mara throws; Petra trims, glazes, and keeps Doris — our 7-cubic-foot electric kiln — honest with a pyrometer and a notebook going back nine years. Nothing here is a "product line." A shape stays in the catalogue only as long as it still surprises us at the kiln door.

The studio is open the first Saturday of each month, 10–4. Come for the seconds shelf: pieces with kiln kisses, pinholes, or a warp we can't defend — 30% off, cash tin, honour system. Everything on it works. It just tells you more of the truth about how it was made.

Clay
B-mix & red stoneware
Firings per year
Ten, give or take a heatwave
Pieces per firing
≈ 212
Survival rate
94% on a good week

The kiln letter

One email per firing — what went in, what came out, what cracked and why. Sent the morning the door opens, before anything goes on the site.