Building The Arch
Creek Road Pottery Newsletter – April 12th 2026
I had been avoiding the arch bricks for months. With all the bricks piled together from the kiln deconstruction three years ago, the task looked like it would take days. The weather was raining, and I was using every excuse to procrastinate. I reviewed the kiln project with Claude AI to see how things could be inched forward, and it pointed out that there were only three types of angled bricks. If I looked closely, I could separate them into three piles and measure the uncertain ones with a digital protractor.
Once I had the three piles, the recommendation was to simply make one row of stacked bricks around the form I’d placed in the ware chamber—not worrying about whether they were slanted correctly but just using the bricks to follow the form underneath. It took a few tries, but once one side was done, all I needed to do was repeat the other side. I was so relieved that this problem was solved in two hours instead of two days. The lesson: break tasks down into smaller parts and steps, and once you start doing the steps, the knot that looks impossible starts to untangle.
Building With My Dad
My dad and I worked on one side of the wood kiln and did a dry stack to be sure all the bricks were there. Not all the bricks are the same thickness, as many got mixed up during deconstruction, but with one side stacked it seemed I should have enough brick to complete the arch. We worked slowly and didn’t exert ourselves too much. We took breaks and took time to chat and enjoy each other’s company. A few times bricks fell, but we knew to communicate well and to stay out of the line of fire.
The weather was nice and cool to work in. One mistake I made last year was trying to do the build in the summer when the sun was very hot. With the arch half done, it gave me more confidence that the kiln will be completed and maybe test-fired this year. I had hoped for it to be done sooner, but I had to work through the many challenges that, as a first-time builder, I ran into. I’m very glad things are being pieced together and the kiln is finally taking shape, brick by brick.
Two In One
I feel like two people living in one body at times, and I have to be both to survive. There’s the me who shows up at the big paper factory for night shift. who punches in, runs machines for twelve hours, solves problems with the team. That me goes to sleep when the sun comes up. Then there’s the me who goes to the studio, who wedges clay and centers it on the wheel, who thinks about form and texture and loses track of time trimming bowls or loading kilns.
Without the factory worker, there is no potter. The overtime shifts buy clay, propane, and glaze materials. The steady paycheck means I don’t have to sell every pot just to eat. Without the potter, the factory worker would have given up years ago. The pots give meaning to the paper towels. Knowing I have a kiln to unload on my day off makes the twelve-hour shifts bearable. I make paper to fund making pots. That’s the deal. Viktor Frankl wrote that we can bear almost any how if we have a strong enough why. The factory is the how. The pottery is the why.
Long-Term Projects
Ana Our kiln is in year three. There are other projects on the list: a children’s book I’ve written that needs editing, plans to brew beer in a handmade fired fermenter, creating plate settings, and starting to have students here. I know I can’t wait until conditions are perfect, as none of those projects would happen. There’s no perfect time better than last year, and the second best time is always now. Starting can mean the smallest thing—even sketching out a rough plan or drawing.
It’s like taking a hike. You are on the trip, starting up the mountain on the trail with the map. The hard work is to overcome challenges and yourself and keep going. The biggest challenge is me, and the second challenge is Resistance. I just need to keep moving forward on these long-term projects. Moving in small steps forward makes things more manageable. On my next days off I hope to make at least ten practice tatami bricks for the firebox roof and see what happens.
Owning the Platform
I have been picking myself and posting the Pottery Dailies on my own website at creekroadpottery.com. That way if anything happens to third-party platforms, I’ll still have my writing here on my own site—maybe where it should have been all along. I have used WordPress as a web platform for the last ten years since I started selling pots as a business. I started out with HostGator, then moved everything to SiteGround for hosting. Things have been going great so far.
The good part about having your own site is that it’s yours and you can take it with you and transfer it elsewhere if you wish. It’s just another hat I need to wear as part of making and selling pots—learning how to run and build a website so I can pick myself and show others who might care what I made. For sure my website is not perfect, but I’ve been making the good a little better until I have the time once again to go back in and switch things up.
Looking Ahead
The big plan is to have the arch done by Mother’s Day 2026, which marks the three-year anniversary of the kiln being donated to Creek Road Pottery by Nan Burdi and Matt Povse. Now that the arch brick combination is worked out, I should be able to move forward at a rapid clip, as the arch brick puzzle was a bottleneck to the whole project. With both sides of the arch dry stacked, I plan to take it apart again and lay the bricks out in the yard, then restack them all with china clay and sand slurry. All of that needs to be done once the nights are warmer.
The work continues whether everything goes as planned or not. I’m thinking about putting up a big mug wall displaying mugs from other makers and friends, picking one each day to have coffee with while I write. Using what we make and what others make is an act of communication. Their thoughts and ideas pass through in how the mugs are created, the shape, trimming, glazing, handles. Their fingerprints are even there. They’ll be gone tomorrow and so will I. The future is built day by day, and I just need to keep showing up.
Thank you for following along and supporting Creek Road Pottery. Every comment, visit, and bit of encouragement makes the long hours worth it. I loaded a few soup bowls into the online shop and plan to place more items online soon. Also, work days for the kiln build will be posted shortly. Be sure to keep making work that matters for the people who care.
Until next time,
Alford Wayman
Artist/ Owner
Enjoyed this post? Get the Creek Road Pottery Newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month. Subscribe on Substack.
Originally published at Creek Road Pottery
Connect with Creek Road Pottery LLC
Website | Shop | Blue Sky | Instagram | Facebook | Newsletter