Buying Pottery at Local Fall and Holiday Markets

Pottery adds a natural, rustic feel to any room of the house. Whether you’re looking for something to store kitchen tools, a decorative vase or a ceramic bowl, these handmade pieces add style and a sense of community that you won’t find in a big box store. Adding pottery to your home decor is simple. Using these quick tips when you shop local fall and holiday markets will ensure that you leave with a piece of pottery and a good feeling.

Clay is the basis for most pottery and there are two main techniques that are used to create a piece. One is called hand-building, which uses a coil or slab of clay to form an object. The other technique involves the use of a wheel, which is a spinning metal disk that clay can be rolled around to create different shapes. The type of clay used will have a large impact on the finished product.

Before pottery can be fired, it needs to go through a series of preparation steps. This includes sizing the clay to prepare it for shaping, which can be done either with a vacuum machine attached to the pugmill or by hand through a process called wedging. Once the clay is sized, it is de-aired and dried until it reaches what’s known as leather-hard. This means that there is very little moisture left in the ware and it can be shaped, trimmed and carved.

The pottery must then be fired, which transforms the raw material into a durable ceramic material. Depending on the firing temperature, a wide variety of physical, chemical and mineralogical changes occur. Potteries that are fired at low temperatures sinter, which is the fusing together of coarser particles to make them harder and stronger. High-fired pottery, like porcelain, requires a much higher firing temperature.