Earthenware pottery is fired to between 1900 and 2100° Fahrenheit – lower than the temperatures required to make salt glaze stoneware. Earthenware pottery retains a soft tactile quality and a lightness that is uncharacteristic of the denser higher fired salt glaze stoneware. A wider range of glaze materials can be used at these temperatures, giving potters a broad palate of glaze color. Along with this broad color palate, the earthenware firing process also gives potters great control over the glaze melt, allowing for striking edge definitions and precise contrasts between different color glazes and the soft matte surfaces of the unglazed clay. This makes earthenware pottery best suited for expressing color.

If you look closely at Chris’s earthenware pottery, you will notice a distinction – some pieces express the matte clays and clear, bright glaze colors emblematic of traditional earthenware processes. However, other pieces have blushed, fire-tanned clay patinas and a softer glaze palate. To create these surfaces, Chris developed a unique, five-day earthenware firing process in which pieces are fired in his salt glaze stoneware kiln. While salt is not added to earthenware firings, the residual salt remaining on the salt kiln’s inner surfaces from his salt glaze stoneware firings vaporizes when he fires his earthenware. As the kiln approaches 2000°F, at a critical period during his earthenware firing, this small amount of residual salt mists over the earthenware surfaces, causing the raw clay to take on a beautiful blushed, fire-stroked patina and causing the glazed surfaces to soften into a subtle and interesting color palate. To intensify the color palates of both his traditional and his salt kiln fired earthenware, Chris applies a variety of oxides and stains to further tint the clay color and render a broad palate of matte surfaces and clay textures.