Winter slip ups: How to frost-proof your garden pottery studio
As a relatively new potter (I’ve been making ceramics for around two years at the time of writing this blog), ceramic life is always a learning curve.
A recent ‘ah-ha!’ moment in my little green shed started when the temperatures dropped in December 2020. I hadn’t considered the effect frost and ice would have on the day-to-day workings of my uninsulated little home studio (having previously only worked from a shared studio space).
If you’re a potter, you’ll know that the colder weather seriously slows drying times, so I’d been leaving pots uncovered on shelves to give them the opportunity to dry.
However, when the sub zero temperatures hit overnight, I found my freshly thrown pots were covered in beads of ice and in one case, icy snowflakes! The freezing temperatures had drawn the water out of the clay, leaving it frozen on the surface. Read more about frozen clay on Valentine Clays’ website.
Pots need to be covered and stored appropriately during the warmer months to manage drying - this may also be the case in the colder winter months depending on your studio set up. After much trial and error, I’ve put together a few tips for preparing your garden studio for when the cold weather bites:
Store wet pots in a sealed, lidded plastic box. Try using a towel to line the bottom of the box and a sheet of plastic to cover the pots.
Keep an eye on the forecast. If sub zero temperatures are likely during the day or overnight, consider covering clay, glaze buckets and slip with cardboard or wood to add an extra layer of insulation, or even moving them to a warmer part of your studio space. I took pots into my house to avoid the freeze, but this might not be an option for everyone.
Try gently drying your freshly thrown pots using a heater or heat gun, but be careful not to dry them too quickly as this could cause them to crack or warp. Infrared or quartz heaters are great, but use fan heaters with care as they may disturb any clay dust that has settled on surfaces around the studio.
If your pots freeze, you could use a heater to defrost them, providing the ice hasn’t pulled them apart. Keep in mind, though, that they may still crack or crumble later (depending on how badly affected they are).
Don’t forget, frozen clay is still perfectly usable. Although frost and ice may ruin any wet pots, you can reclaim the clay as usual. If any new bags of clay become frozen, you should defrost it and re-wedge it before use. There’s no need to bin your clay.
Frost and ice can be beautiful, but also devastating (or at the very least, annoying) when it affects a whole batch of work. As my Insta pal Sophia McEvoy Ceramics perfectly put it, if only we could replicate the frosty patterns with glazes!