Hello, everyone!
Friends make the journey of life more meaningful and
enjoyable. Good friends are good for your health! Today we’d like to give you a glimpse behind the scenes to show our
process of making our “Friends” that are used in our murals and
borders!
Believe it or not, each and every Friend we’ve ever made has started
from a chunk of clay! For every Friend we offer there is a handmade
plaster mold that we pound pliable clay into and, once the excess clay
is cleaned off, the mold gets placed onto our shelves to dry.
The pieces sit in their molds overnight, shrinking
slightly in size, making it easier to remove each piece from the mold.
As the clay dries moisture evaporates and allows for better handling of
the still delicate pieces. We then give a preliminary cleaning before
letting them naturally dry (shown above) until being “bone dry”, meaning
the piece has dried as much as possible before entering the bisque kiln
firing.
Friends go through a final cleaning process and are stacked onto kiln
shelves and fired to nearly 2,000° F! At this stage, the pieces shed
most of the remaining moisture and any impurities in the
clay will burn off. With some moisture remaining the pieces are still
slightly porous, which improves a glaze’s ability to grab hold and
adhere. Once the pieces have cooled down we remove them from the kiln
and add them to our bisque inventory. Because most of our designs
include custom glazed pieces, we keep the majority of our Friends in
this bisqued stage until it’s time to glaze!
The world of glazes is beautiful, intricate, and sometimes confusing!
Our artists glaze each and every Friend by hand and pay very close
attention to detail. Some Friends may require only one glaze, while some
require many – it all depends on the piece! Once the pieces are glazed
they’re loaded up into one of our glaze kilns for a second firing. The
chemicals that make up our glazes react to heat in very specific ways
and transform in a major way! Glaze colors begin dull, opaque, and often
neutral, but once hot enough, the glaze changes and can come out
glossy, brilliant, and often changing color completely! The same glaze
can also look different when applied on various pieces. This is because
the texture and detail of each piece will allow the glazes to pool in
different ways. It all depends on what results you’re trying to achieve!
Once out of the glaze kiln and fully cooled these
Friends are now ready to be used in our borders and murals! It’s crazy
to think that these detailed pieces started their journeys as chunks of
clay! We pride ourselves on creating these pieces by hand, in house, and
that makes us able to create wonderful custom borders and murals to
send to their forever-homes with customers like you!