https://www.fireborn.com/c-2/

Topics You Should Cover In Your Teaching

  1. Understanding clay
  2. Basic throwing concepts
  3. Throwing.  basic forms
    1. Bowl
    2. Cylinder
    3. Plate
    4. Rounded barrel
    5. “S” curve
  4. Exploring and extending your understanding of basic form, design and throwing techniques
    1. Vases
    2. Pitchers
    3. Bowls
    4. Jars with lids
    5. Casseroles with lids
    6. Unlidded casseroles
    7. Oval Casseroles
    8. Teapots
  5. Frequent encountered problems and solutions
    1. Thin bottoms, twisting, air bubbles, shrinkage affecting attachments, too wet/too dry, too thin/too thin.
  6. Parts you add to pots
    1. Lids
    2. Spouts
    3. Handles
    4. Knobs
    5. Feet
  7. Beyond the basics – adding interest to your pots
    1. Faceting
    2. Fluting
    3. Lip treatment
    4. Altering
    5. Slip Decoration
    6. Spouts
    7. Graphic design
    8. Softness recalled
    9. Surface and texture
  8. Trimming
  9. Five Mugs Series
  10. Understanding Fireborn’s Glazes
  11. Glaze application
    1. Single glazing and Lip Dips
    2. 1/3 – 2/3 with squirting
    3. Inside Outside
    4. Underglazes
    5. Resist decoration
    6. Mixing glaze from a recipe
  12. Sectional pots and adding parts

Topics to teach

Fireborn is not a non-profit nor a university. We do not receive any grants. We are not a charity and we do not have a social mission, in the way the PCA or Manchester does.  We have a mission to make our own artwork and teach others to love pottery, learn to throw, and have fun. If they become professional potters, all the better. When students get to a stage of productivity that is beyond our capacity to handle, they need to “graduate” and move on, set up their own studios, sell their work, get MFA’s, etc. Our instructors do not have total academic freedom to design and implement curriculum, as a contractor or college professor may have. There are some aspects of pottery we do not teach, or want to happen at Fireborn. There are limits on what we offer and what can do. These limits are based on practical considerations. 

We have space issues. It is limited. Fireborn is not just about classes. It is also a working artists’ studio and gallery. Classes and students need to coexist with the fact that Fireborn is a working artists’ studio and with Dan and Donna’s production. Donna’s studio and production is mostly confined to the third floor, but Dan shares studio space with students. Some areas and equipment are off limits to students and instructors. Dan does not share his tools, nor his personal equipment nor his chucks with students. Never go beyond the barrier in the bisqueware room to and lend students Dan’s stuff. Ever!

We are extremely successful because we are focused on doing what we do, and on doing it well. 

Our classes are about wheel throwing and associated skills, and cone 11 reduction glazes… lots of beautiful glazes. We do not permit hand building unless the hand built parts are subordinate additions to the thrown object. We also have size limits. Donna and Dan love hand building and making large pots, and we do those things ourselves. We encourage students who want to pursue those avenues to go do so, and to go elsewhere and do so, but not do it at Fireborn. There are some things we will never offer to students. Some glazes and parts of our studio are off limits to students. 

We offer workshops and private lessons. Some are geared to the needs of our students. They may sometimes be on topics we do not teach in class, nor even permit in class, like making large sectional pots. Those workshops are educational in nature, geared to people working outside of Fireborn or who simply want to learn the techniques. 

Our website is extensive and has evolved over many years. It has information that students and instructors are expected to know. There is a FAQ sections. Dan had made videos on centering, throwing, trimming, glazing, decorating, etc. Our website has 100 pages, plus hundreds of links to the outside world of pottery. 

Our instructors should be knowledgable of the resources on our website, and point students to the appropriate sections when they have questions that are answered there. We would prefer you not try to explain or reiterate our policies. We want you to refer students to our website so they get the facts right. Do not try to explain the reason behind answers to questions like “I have to miss a class. Can I come another day?”  Simply say “No, but consider open studio.” Refer them to the website for more details. There is a computer by the washing machine.

Syllabus for new students: Fireborn Studios © this document

This is merely a suggestion for a basic 8-week course.

Each week review all basics, body mechanics, wedging, centering, opening, pulling, trimming extra clay. Be sure all pots are trimmed every week. New students are very needy and can consume a lot of your time. Be sure to devote at least 30 % of your attention to returning students. They make up the majority of the class and they deserve instruction at their level. Note this syllabus does not deal with more advanced and repeat students. You will have to do demos expressly for them, and provide help to them, too. 

When you do a demonstration, insist that the people who need it pay attention. Call them by name if necessary, and insist they watch. Do not repeat demos for people who did not pay attention the first time around. 

Returning students should glaze during weeks one through four, while new students are upstairs. When new students glaze will depend in part upon the firing schedule. There is a note on the door of the kiln indicating % full. Everyone needs to trim all their pots before throwing. Have students who are beginner glazers, with 2 or more terms under their belts, go downstairs and glaze during the last hour of class, and be sure to approve their plan and check their work before they put it on the ware racks. 

In addition to everything below, try to find time to talk about the properties of clay (slip, soft, leather hard, bone dry, bisque, and vitrified), shrinkage, slumping during the glaze firing, and memory.

Week 1 – wedge, cone, center, open, small bowl and cylinder

Use good body mechanics

Make a quick pinch pot. 

Demo pinching a ball to raise its height (like our test tiles). 

Demo centering etc. Dampen the bat, throw clay in the center, slap clay into center

Move the clay up and down

Demo cylinder and bowl

Easy Goal: Pull up a cylinder with 1 pounds 8 ounces of clay, 10 cm high

Easy Goal: Make a 1 or 2 pound bowl.

Week 2 – Wedge, Trim, Throw

Demo a bowl. Explain that cylinders should not be converted to bowls and bowls should not be converted to plates. We won’t fire a flopped bowl-plate.

Throw a bowl and pull out and up on the first pull.

Goal: Cone, center and open in less than 5 minutes.

Flat floor 1/4 inch thick and as wide as the pot. 

Make bowls and a mug

Ask questions….make sure they know how to tell if the clay is leather hard and ready to trim….

 

Week 3 Make mug handle and more pots. 

Reminder: Wedge and Trim

Demo handles and spouts for pitchers

Demo bowls and cylinders

Goal: Cone center and open in less than 5 minutes.

Goal: handle on mug

Goal:Make a pitcher and more mugs and bowls

Make sure students understand shrinkage and memory and how they affect handles.

Instructor, inspect every pot for proper and even wall and floor thickness!

/Instructor, inspect trimming.

Week 4 – “U” shaped bowls and “S” curves

Wedge, Trim, Throw

Demo flowing lines on bowls and “S” curves on cylinders. Discuss FORM and LINE

Goal: make some nice forms that are a good weight.

Discuss 

Goals:

Week  5 Open Practice and individualized help

Suggestions:

Instructor, inspect every pot for proper and even wall and floor thickness! 

Instructor, inspect trimming.

Week 6 Altering and adding value to your pots and Open Practice

Demo: facing, fluting, split rims, combing, adding stuff, goopy slip

Goal: play with the above techniques.

Goal:

Instructors: Critique trimming and overweight pots

Week 7 – Open Practice

Demo: ask for suggestions

Review the basics

Glazing Demo: introduce glazing downstairs. Discuss GLAZING MANUAL, glaze samples, beginner and independent glaze status and read the rules, color coded buckets, stirring glazes, one second dips, half and half and squirt bottles, and be ready to glaze next week. 

Instructors: Critique trimming and overweight pots

After every glaze firing, do a guided show and tell. Point out what worked and what did not. This is a must. It’s a great learning experience. 

Regarding the alarm: when you come in to teach in the mornings, the alarm the alarm should be on. To turn the alarm off, insert the key in the slot to the left of the door (it will have a red light on if the alarm is sounding). When you leave in the afternoon, you won’t need to set the alarms since we’ll be here during the day. Please leave the key in the key hole slot. When you leave after teaching in the evening, remember to set the alarm again by doing as follows: make sure all doors are closed and you have a green light; turn the key to the right so a red light goes on—this means the alarm is set; PUT THE KEY AWAY; you now have one minute to exit, shut the door behind you and secure the deadbolt.