Every Ketaro batch starts the same way: twenty-five kilos of wet stoneware clay, a cold studio and a list of forty shapes pinned above the wheel. Six weeks later, those forty pieces leave in numbered boxes. Here is what happens in between.
Week one: wedging and throwing
Clay is wedged by hand to push out air and line up the particles, then weighed into balls — 1.4 kilos for a carafe, 380 grams for a cup. Weighing is what makes forty pieces look like one family.
We throw in the mornings, when the light is low and hands are fresh. A good day is twelve carafes. A bad day is four, and a bucket of reclaim.
Weeks two and three: trimming and drying
At leather-hard, each piece is turned upside down and trimmed: the foot carved, the walls thinned, the weight checked again. Then everything dries slowly under cloth for ten days. Rushing this step is the most common reason pots crack in the kiln.
You can’t hurry clay. You can only stop getting in its way.
Weeks four to six: two firings
Bisque firing to 1,000°C turns clay into porous ceramic.
Glazes are mixed in small buckets and poured or dipped by hand.
The glaze firing climbs to 1,280°C over fourteen hours, then cools for two days with the door shut.
When we finally open the kiln, every piece is checked, numbered on the foot and photographed under one lamp — the same light you see in the shop.
