Welcome to the CrackitusPots website
Some background…
CrackitusPots is a ceramicist/potter based at the Jinney Ring Craft Centre in Hanbury, Worcestershire.
A lover of throwing all things clay related; be they pots, bowls, or miniature figures. Various techniques are employed to enhance the pieces and create a very unique piece of art, such as sgraffito, adding slip to a spinning pot, slip-trailing, gouging (my own description). Every piece is unique, being totally hand-made or hand-thrown and will come in a variety of colour glazes.
All my work (if considered good enough) is on display in The Pottery shop at the Jinney Ring Craft Centre and is available to purchase.
Some of these items are on display through this website and you can buy them using the online pay facilities.
So who is CrackitusPots..?
Worked for a long time in various civil service departments before deciding to retire early and begin a new chapter in his life book, entitled “Pottering around and other exciting opportunities for the creatively challenged”.
Anyway, after realising that golf could also fit into his schedule, he took up pottery and decided that throwing was really important to him because it suited his personality (whereas golf definitely didn’t). This is mainly a result of him being a little impatient, and throwing something on the wheel can happen quite quickly and seeing a shape almost magically appear from a lump of clay in such a short amount of time is absolutely the best thing ever! Hitting a tiny ball with a club only just bigger than the ball on the end of a 3 foot stick, proved less rewarding for him, but strangely enough he has persisted with golf as well because it brings him down to earth and that’s probably a good thing overall…
The Clays
Clay generally comes in 3 types: Earthenware, Stoneware, and Porcelain. There are polymer clays which are synthetic, but most potters use a combination of the main 3 types. Most of the clay used by Crackituspots is bought in bulk (approx. 1 ton) from different suppliers. AWS1 and AWS1/G are primarily used because it of the plasticity and ease of use, especially on the wheel and is a stoneware clay. It is a mid-grey colour as greenware (raw state), firing under bisque temperatures of 900-1000 0 C to change to a light sandy colour. It is compatible with a whole range of glazes (see below for glazes) including Mayco Stoneware and Mayco Stroke and Coat glazes, but also with many dipping glazes. Other clays are used for specialist pieces, including terracotta which is an Earthenware clay, a fine white Stoneware clay, and a black Stoneware clay.
The Glazes
Generally, the Mayco Stroke and Coat selection of glazes are used because these have proved very reliable with various clays and there is a very large variety of colours. Mayco have also included a selection of “speckled” varieties which can really add to your colour pallet for that extra dimension when glazing your pieces.
The Mayco brush-on Stoneware glazes have also proved a great addition, and these have a much wider colour range.
Both seem to produce perfectly good results when fired to 1250 0 C, although the Stroke and Coat can be fired much lower if desired. The colour matches are very good and unless it is absolutely essential for your piece, pre-testing of the colour probably isn’t necessary, although if you are using widely different clays, some testing of the glaze on specific clays might be desirable to ensure proper bonding of the glaze.
The dipping glazes are either purchased ready-made in 5kg tubs, or you can buy the ingredients and make your own to any of the hundreds of recipes found online. It’s advisable to test your own made dipping glazes on a variety of different bisque fired clays before you use them on the real thing though to see if the results match what was expected.