QotW: Where?

[Pres]

This will be a question of my own. It has come up before, but I think it is appropriate to revisit studios from time to time to let people know where you do what you do.

In 1973 after graduating from college, I moved to Central, PA to join my new wife. We had the standard small apartments, had a child, and then another and apartments did not suit us much anymore. My studio came with a starter home we purchased in 1989. The house used to be an old parsonage, double the size it is now, as when the church renovated, they cut the house in 1/2 and we live in the section that was left. It used to have a carriage house out back, as we found foundations for it. The house was built in 1897. My studio is in the garage that came with the house. Brick, uninsulated, in an area that hardly ever gets sun except in Summer later in the day. Funny thing is, there is a river running underneath the garage, and a drain that I believe goes direct to the river so I don't use it. Needless to say the Winter time in there is severe, thus very little pottery. The cay is stored outside under our two sea kayaks under a heavy tied down tarp. In the Winter months depending, the clay is frozen much of the Winter. This year just thawed two weeks ago. The floor in the studio slopes enough that in some areas I have 3/4" shims to level workbench, shelving, kilns, and the wheel. In the Summer the temps stay cooler than outside, and if working early in the day can be chilly at times. This week, first week of April, the shop has been 48F. with An electric heater on all 24 hrs. I am trying to get Communion sets ready to mail out. So that is my where, and to show an older picture, it pretty much looks the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So WHERE do you do your Ceramic thing?

[Denice]

I am quite spoiled with the new studio I built with our new house 11 years ago but I did start out with meager beginnings.  My first area was in my husbands garage,  I had a fold down table, chair, bucket of water and a used kiln.   Three years later we buy a bigger house and it had a small shack that the previous owner rewound motors in.   We cleaned it up, painted and fixed the plumbing,  It had been built as a place for the owners son to sleep in when he came back from the Korean war.  That didn't work out he had a Korean bride with him.   We decided after living there 10 years that we wanted to restore a historical house.   We bought the biggest house in the worst condition in the historical district.  There was a stream in the basement and that was where my studio was going.  We got rid of the stream and painted everything white and hung a bunch of florescent lights,  I had my kilns wired in and worked in the dungeon for 13 years.  Our son grew up and moved away and we were just rattling around in this big old house.   I decided it was time to build our pre-retirement/dream  house.   We down sized the living area but increased the work shop area where we spend most of our time.   My studio now has a kiln room with good ventilation and wiring,  my sink area has a good settling system and the room has lots of windows.  The heating/air condition system doesn't work that well but it is enough to get by.  My husband is retiring this year and the house is paid off.  YEA  Denice

[Gabby]

I have a little two-room studio in my basement.  I have my wheel, two work tables, a couple of portable wedging boards, and shelves in one room.  The second room had, prior to our buying the house thirty years ago, been a canning room. That is where I keep my glazes and clay and where pots dry.

I don't have a kiln and probably never will.  I cannot wire or ventilate adequately for that, and don't have the space for an out building. I take things to a kiln in an industrial area about twenty minutes from home.

It is probably in the forties down in the studio right now, with no heat and little insulation. In fact there is a very big crack under the door to the outside.

I feel very, very lucky to have this space- any space at all for this.

[oldlady]

pres, i want so bad to drive up there and put a shed in your yard that can be insulated and electrified for a comfortable studio.  my 10x16  shed is so generously big that i feel spoiled.  i love to build houses and yours would be the 6th.

[Pres]

oldlady, You would have a terrible time getting any sort of structure on my lot, as it is a city lot with very little surrounding grounds. It is what it is. At this stage, I guess I will either have to buy a lot for the studio, or find a building. The garage is not that bad, just . . . .small.

 

best,

Pres

[oldlady]

if you have a space that is just a little bigger than 10x16 and a gate that would allow someone to carry plywood sheets through it, 4x8 feet, you can get a shed built easily.

[Denice]

It is not impossible to put a kiln in a old basement.  My kiln was in the same room as the washer, dryer and the breaker box.  We had updated the wiring and breaker box when we rebuilt the kitchen, the electrician ran surface conduit from the kiln to the breaker box.   Someone had already put a dryer vent through the outside wall.  So we got rid of the flexible metallic hose and put in a metal box conduit and install a vent fan.   I couldn't use the dryer while I was using it for venting the kiln fumes.  It could have used better ventilation,  I just stayed out of my studio on days that I fired.    Rewiring the kitchen and laundry room really cut the cost of our  house insurance, we had knob and tube in the rest of the house that was in good condition.    The money we saved on insurance covered the cost of the wiring after a few years.    Denice

[LeeU]

My little studio, 14 x 12 (former bedroom-I moved into the little spare room-oh, what we sacrifice for our art); big L-desk & office functions are in the living room-not pretty, but I don't get a lot of company & I can watch Netflix from across the room as I work.  The dining room is full of packing  materials, files/overflow art supplies; kiln is out on the back porch, with much thanks to my kind landlord...we used very heavy duty clear vinyl to semi-weatherize it for the NH winters.  I sold off a ton of art/craft books & just kept one small shelf. I do mostly hand built "smalls" (hence the excess of stamps/texture tools). A tabletop slab roller and more buckets of clay are  stored under the glazing table. The whole shebang is quite functional.

[oldlady]

lee, when did you add the deep sink?  what a treasure!

[Pres]

City code will not allow any more sheds etc on my property. 

Not good, but I couldn't do it anyway as I have a drive way that has a plastic shed on it, and a rack that holds the two sea kayaks. That takes up most of the driveway space, and the deck in the back as small as it is takes up the rest of the available space.

 

best,

Pres

[Callie Beller Diesel]

Here’s my little basement hideout. There’s a small closet behind the wheel that holds most of my bulk glaze materials, and the glaze buckets are stacked behind the door. This is the current state of my studio, and it’s the tail end of glaze day. My kiln is in a shed in the back yard, and I do a lot of stairs on the days I load and unload kilns. 

[terrim8]

This is what it looks like after a good round of activity. I have to clean it up prior to starting work again. The mirror helps me throw plus its great for notes & weights, etc.

The avatar makes sense now right? Mess, mess, mess - but its my mess!

[Denice]

Callie nice windows and studio in the basement,  the house I had my basement studio in was so old it had sunk 18 inches into the ground.    The few windows it had were bricked up.  Denice

[Mark C.]

15 hours ago, terrim8 said:

This is what it looks like after a good round of activity. I have to clean it up prior to starting work again. The mirror helps me throw plus its great for notes & weights, etc.

The avatar makes sense now right? Mess, mess, mess - but its my mess!

I did not know that in Canada they still used those old phones on the wall. I always learn something here. I thought they gave up the operator only phones everywhere long ago.

[terrim8]

2 minutes ago, Mark C. said:

I did not know that in Canada they still used those old phones on the wall. I always learn something here. I thought they gave up the operator only phones everywhere long ago.

Yep, & I bring my pottery to sales by horse & wagon! No worries about Facebook privacy issues here in our technologically advanced country - just our local nosy tele-ma-phone operator;)

[yappystudent]