Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: handbuilding, television, tiles

This week on the British TV show “The Great Pottery Throwdown”, the contestants were tasked with making 40 handmade tiles in two hours. Their goal was to make enough tiles to tile a small fireplace surround… with a twist of the tiles needing to have some 3-dimensional designs on it. They did the project in two parts… first making the tiles, then they let the tiles stiffen up a bit.. and then back to add the details. Some people struggled with smooth, flat tiles… while others succeeded… and others decided to make their challenge even harder by going to hexagon or triangle tiles! So instead of forty squares, Claire had to make 80 triangles, while Matt went for 102 hexagons!

To watch the episode on YouTube… click here.

While their tiles were set aside to dry for awhile to stiffen up, they did a quick Throwdown Challenge… where they had to throw a large terra cotta chimney… by assembling two large cylinders together for the large chimney cylinder.

The contestants received their glazed & finished tiles back from the kiln guy, they had to assemble, install & gorut their fireplace surrounds… and then stand there for judging!!!

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