Facilities

Tools

A range of tools is available to use in the studio. There are some communal tools available for most standard tasks, water buckets, sponges, and paintbrushes. Members are encouraged to collect their own tools as they develop in their practice. We sell starter tool sets on-site for just £5.

Personal Storage Space

Each member has his or her own storage shelf (w90cm x d45cm x h45cm) in the studio, which is adequate for most users.(Whilst we hope that it will never be an issue, Turning Earth cannot be responsible for your personal items. We recommend you do not leave any valuables or items of personal significance in the storage area.)

Kilns

Turning Earth E10 has eight high quality electric L&L 28T top loaders kilns.

30 litres of stoneware (oxidation) kiln space per month is included in the monthly membership. It is rare that people need to go over this but if you use all your free space, additional work is fired at £1.50 a litre for members. Only pieces made by members with clay bought through us can be fired in the studio firing. Allowances don’t roll over.

Our studio assistants load the kilns so you do not need to know how to do this, but you must know how to prepare and glaze work for the kiln so that it will not cause kiln damage. The cost of damage to the kiln caused by incorrectly prepared work is passed onto members.

All work that goes through the communal firing is measured and labelled with the member’s name, the clay body, and the glaze used.

We fire every day, so work goes through the studio quite quickly. However, we do advise that it can take up to two weeks for pieces to be fired at times when there is a lot of demand.

We don't hire kilns. If you would like to hire a kiln we recommend that you contact Jo Davies Studio.

Clay

Clay comes from Potclays and is sold at low prices from the Turning Earth store. We are afraid that clay is only available for studio members - we don’t sell to the public. If you are looking for a clay supplier we recommend Ceramatech in Tottenham, who has a supply store near White Hart Lane station and delivers across London.Clays available to members include:

• Draycott stoneware (an off-white, smooth throwing body)
  
• Sanded buff stoneware (a grogged stoneware, good for handbuilding)
• Staffordshire stoneware (a light buff throwing body, with a slight natural fleck)
• Fine vulcan black (beautiful dark clay body for both throwing and handbuilding)
• Medium vulcan black (similar to the fine, more highly grogged)
• Coarse vulcan black (highly grogged black clay)
• Craft crank (a coarse handbuilding body)
• Lavafleck (stoneware with extensive brown flecking)Draycott stoneware (an off-white, smooth throwing body)

Glazes

Turning Earth provides 17 different glazes in different colours and textures. These are all stoneware-fired glazes and suitable for the standard firings provided as part of your membership. Use of the glazes is included in the membership fee.

To protect the equipment and other people’s work, if you would like to fire your own glazes, these must be test fired and approved by the studio manager before use in a communal firing, and then clearly labelled.

Glaze must be applied correctly before we will fire it, and there should be at least a half centimetre clearance around the bottom of each item unless it is placed on a member’s own firing bat. This is to prevent damage to the kiln shelves from running glazes.

Wheels

Turning Earth E10 has 18 new style Shimpo Whisper wheels. These are - true to their name - extraordinarily quiet, and can maintain a smooth speed even when centering a heavy load.

Our wheels are all drilled at the standard US drilling position of 10 inches, which means that you can use US standard bats - such as the Wonderbat model if you have them. Unfortunately there is no formal UK standard drilling size for wheel heads (which is why bats made here are short-run and a lot more expensive than in the US).

Plaster facilities

A plaster area is located at the back of the studio for people wanting to make moulds for slip casting.

Plaster is available for sale at the studio. Giuseppe, our E2 resident plaster technician, regularly teaches both one-to-one and in small groups, for those makers who have never used plaster before or who want to improve their skills.

Please note: it's really important that no plaster gets mixed with the clay work in the studio (it will explode in the kiln) and that everything is disposed of correctly.

Other facilities

We also have an extruder with die plates, two slab rollers, a pug mill (this is potentially dangerous, so used by trained staff members only), eco-friendly cleaning systems, waste disposal, and measuring systems.

Turning Earth Store

Members have exclusive access to the Turning Earth store. Clay, plaster, wheel bats single tools and tool kits are available to purchase onsite.

Roof terrace and garden

Our roof terrace is a great place to work in during the summer months. We have a garden outside as well.