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Session 1: Cone 6 Soda-Firing Workshop with Doug Dotson
Registration for this workshop will be handled via a lottery. To enter, add your email to the waitlist below by 11:59 pm on Wednesday, December 17. Claymakers staff will randomly select 10 participants and notify them the morning of December 18 with registration and payment details.
One entry per person, please! We’ll be checking for duplicates, so entering with multiple emails won’t increase your chances.
Skill Level: Advanced
This class offers a hands-on opportunity to make, design and participate in the firing of pots in a soda kiln. In the soda firing process, a soda ash (sodium carbonate) solution is sprayed into kiln at maturing temperature, and the sodium vapor combines with the silica in clay to form a glaze. Surface textures vary from juicy gloss through satiny-smooth to pebbly and dry. Since the soda provides the glaze, surface decoration focuses on the use of slip, textures, and accent glazes as well as the raw clay surface, rather than glaze interactions to create interesting surfaces.
Students new to soda firing are welcome. All students will need to have taken a previous introductory clay class (either throwing or handbuilding: handbuilders are welcome!), and all students are expected to load and unload the kiln as part of the class. Students can expect to have an amount of space in the kiln equivalent to about 25 mugs.
Workshop tuition includes 25 pounds of clay and firing fees. Workshop students will have access to Session 1 open studio hours to create work for this workshop.
Workshop Presenter:
Doug Dotson is a studio potter based in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Looking to the simplicity and strength of natural forms and patterns for direction, Doug make pots in a way that shows the marks from his hands, tools, and from the fire that transforms mud to pottery.
Workshop Schedule:
January 5, 6:30-9:30 pm: in-person work session @ Claymakers
Surfaces and Slips For Soda Firing
January 6-February 14: Session 1 2026 open studio hours
Tuesday-Saturday, 1-6 pm
February 14: bisque deadline
February 21: Loading @ Doug’s kiln site in Chatham Co.
TBD: Firing @ Doug’s kiln site
TBD: Unloading @ Doug’s kiln site (date to be determined as a group)
Registration for this workshop will be handled via a lottery. To enter, add your email to the waitlist below by 11:59 pm on Wednesday, December 17. Claymakers staff will randomly select 10 participants and notify them the morning of December 18 with registration and payment details.
One entry per person, please! We’ll be checking for duplicates, so entering with multiple emails won’t increase your chances.
Skill Level: Advanced
This class offers a hands-on opportunity to make, design and participate in the firing of pots in a soda kiln. In the soda firing process, a soda ash (sodium carbonate) solution is sprayed into kiln at maturing temperature, and the sodium vapor combines with the silica in clay to form a glaze. Surface textures vary from juicy gloss through satiny-smooth to pebbly and dry. Since the soda provides the glaze, surface decoration focuses on the use of slip, textures, and accent glazes as well as the raw clay surface, rather than glaze interactions to create interesting surfaces.
Students new to soda firing are welcome. All students will need to have taken a previous introductory clay class (either throwing or handbuilding: handbuilders are welcome!), and all students are expected to load and unload the kiln as part of the class. Students can expect to have an amount of space in the kiln equivalent to about 25 mugs.
Workshop tuition includes 25 pounds of clay and firing fees. Workshop students will have access to Session 1 open studio hours to create work for this workshop.
Workshop Presenter:
Doug Dotson is a studio potter based in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Looking to the simplicity and strength of natural forms and patterns for direction, Doug make pots in a way that shows the marks from his hands, tools, and from the fire that transforms mud to pottery.
Workshop Schedule:
January 5, 6:30-9:30 pm: in-person work session @ Claymakers
Surfaces and Slips For Soda Firing
January 6-February 14: Session 1 2026 open studio hours
Tuesday-Saturday, 1-6 pm
February 14: bisque deadline
February 21: Loading @ Doug’s kiln site in Chatham Co.
TBD: Firing @ Doug’s kiln site
TBD: Unloading @ Doug’s kiln site (date to be determined as a group)