A two-wheel studio making tableware the long way round. Sixty pieces a week, no two the same, all of them meant to be used.
Kiln & Clay is Ana Figueira and Tomás Brandão, in a former bakery in Alfama. The bread oven is still in the wall. We use it to dry pots.
We mix our own glazes from wood ash and local feldspar, which is why a colour can sell out and never come back in quite the same shade.
Every piece starts as a kilo of wet clay and one pair of hands on a wheel.
Left to go leather-hard overnight, then cut back until the walls ring.
Forty hours at 1,280°C. We open the kiln on Sunday and find out.
Small groups, aprons provided. Everything you make is glazed, fired and posted to you.
Two hours on the wheel with a glass of something.
Throw, trim, glaze. By week four you will have opinions about clay.
The studio to yourselves, for a birthday or a team that needs to make something.
“I bought four bowls in 2019. They have been in the dishwasher every day since and I am still not bored of them.”
“We serve forty covers a night on Ana's plates. Guests turn them over to see who made them.”
“The six-week course is the only thing I have ever finished.”
Everything is vitrified stoneware or porcelain. It will outlast the dishwasher.
Safe to 250°C. Let it warm up with the oven rather than going in hot.
Wobbles and glaze runs go in the seconds box at half price, every Sunday.
Chip it and we will smooth it. Break it and we will tell you about kintsugi.
Across Europe and the UK, packed in wood wool rather than plastic. Elsewhere, write to us and we will work it out.
Yes. Sets are made to order and take around six weeks. We send a sample plate first.
Because it was made by hand and glazed with ash. If the difference bothers you, send it back within thirty days.
It is about a third of what we do. Minimum order is twenty pieces.
Each firing sells through in a day or two. Subscribers get the list on Saturday night.