David Gurney, Bird Candle Sticks II, Doug Hill photograph
Thanks to the technology that’s constantly evolved from the studio craft movement of the 1960s, quality kilns are no longer limited to huge industrial affairs. Home gas kilns can be as large as a refrigerator; if your intention is to make smaller pieces, you can easily find a countertop electric model that runs on regular house current for as low as a few hundred dollars.
Objects can also be made without a wheel by tearing off chunks of clay and hand-building them as free-form pieces. You can carve the clay, shape it by bending or folding it under – the sky’s the limit to your artistic stylings. They can be functional or sculptural. Art that’s abstract or well-defined. It’s even traditional: To this day, American Indian pots are often made with snake-like coils of clay that are hand-formed to the desired shape.
Mesa Verde black-on-white kiva jar (with lid), Courtesy Mesa Verde National Park, Steve Grafe photograph
For the ultimate in small-space craft, there’s polymer clay. Most often used to make beads or other small jewelry, this material comes in small blocks or strips that are already colored. You work with it much as you used Play-Doh modeling clay, cutting and combining sculpted pieces. You can also make patterned beads by putting strips together in a lengthwise pattern, and then cutting them into pieces, much like you would with cookie dough.
As for tools, in addition to basic shaping tools, get a pasta machine to manipulate the polymer clay like dough, and a toaster oven to cure it at around 275-285 degrees. Caution: There have been questions about the clay’s safety, particularly with fumes when heated; to be safe, you should buy machines to use only with the clay. For more information, visit the National Polymer Clay Guild at www.npcg.org.
