Unexpected Visit to the Ceramic Factory in Moscow
It is interesting where sometimes you may end up your day absolutely unexpectedly. Yesterday, I was quietly working from home, when I received a call from my artist in Armenia (with whom I work for my boutique) that we are run out of clay plates and she has nothing to paint on to accomplish our current orders. She called all the potters in Yerevan and none of them had the plates of the required size. Then it was my turn to call all the pottery factories and private ceramicists here in Moscow. After half an hour of searching I managed to find one factory that makes them, so I hurried to pick them up.
The factory that I visited exists for more than 40 years and when I first stepped in I had a feeling that I I was brought back to the Soviet Union on the time machine:
The lady who sold me the plate was very kind to show me around. This was a quite an interesting excursion!
This huge gas kiln is not working any longer (despite we supply gas all over Europe, apparently it is too expensive to use it). It is around 3 meters in diameter and you can only guess how many items you can fire at the same time:
And this is where they do it now:
When firing ceramics you have to be very careful about the temperature inside the kiln: if set up wrong it will make all the pottery crackle.
If you are interested about the whole process of pottery making, you might want to read this post, which I have written after visiting one ceramic manufacture in Armenia. I really enjoyed looking at all the workpieces stacked on the shelves or in the boxes:
I feel like handmade ceramics has that energy that comes directly from the Earth. I am planning to attend some pottery making classes, which I heard is a form of meditation.
And here were my plates waiting for me:
I had to wrap them safely and send to Yerevan, where Anush painted them with acrylic paints and covered with protected varnish:
Today we will be sending these plates to our clients in the U.S. – what a long trip for them!
Have a wonderful day!
