We’ve been waxing our feet for about thirty years now!

Each piece of Ivy Creek Stoneware is fired (baked in the kiln) twice. Twice, you say? Yep. First, the pottery is fired to around 1900 degrees to bring the clay to a hard yet still porous state, similar to that of a common red clay flower pot. It’s called a ‘bisque’ firing, and it allows the pottery to retain its shape when glaze is applied during the next phase of production. After several coats of glaze are applied, the pottery is fired again to well over 2200 degrees, making the stoneware surface very durable.

So, what about our waxed feet? Well, after the pottery is bisque fired, a coat of wax is applied to the ‘foot’ of each pot to prevent glaze from sticking to the bottom of it. Glaze is a liquid glass coating that is applied to the ware. If glaze becomes trapped between the bottom of the pot and the kiln shelf, it will melt during the glaze firing and bond the pottery to the shelf. When this happens, a hammer and chisel are required to remove the pot from the shelf. (What a waste!) But wax on the foot of the pot simply burns off during the glaze firing, and the pot is then easily removed from the shelf. So, the fired raw clay is what you see on the bottom of each pot. It looks and feels a bit like … a stone.