Brush Creek Pottery
 

Resident potter, Mark Nafziger, an Archbold native, has been at the Village since 1981. Today, he makes his studio in this timber-frame structure which was built on the property. The timbers were squared one summer using century-old techniques and then the structure went up in an old-fashioned barn-raising event over Labor Day weekend in 1989. 

The skylight overhead and the cathedral ceilings are the perfect setting for Mark's traditional, functional, and one-of-a-kind stoneware pottery. Mark is considered a continuing craftsman, one who works in the present, but draws heavily on the past.

Learn more about Mark Nafziger when you read about the continuing craftsmen on the Craft page.
 

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New!... Salt Glazed Pottery... by Mark Nafziger  (fall 2006)

If you happen to walk around the pottery shop this fall you will notice a change. Gone are some of the bushes and ornamental grasses and a new kiln is under construction. The new kiln will be fired with wood and used to produce a salt glaze on the pottery.

When explaining the process of firing and glazing pottery, I often get asked by guests, "How did they used to do it?" I go on to tell them that about 4000 years ago the Chinese were already building kilns and firing stoneware at temperatures of 2300 degrees by burning wood. The pots would be coated with a mixture of various clays and minerals which at those elevated temperatures would melt and form glass on the pot. European potters were never able to produce stoneware until knowledge of how to design the kilns was imported from the Far East.

As far as I know, the origins of salt glaze are not recorded, but it does appear in Germany on pottery around the late 13^th to early 14^th century. These dates coincide with the gothic cathedral construction boom in Europe. Historians speculate that potters faced with a wood shortage with most of the wood being consumed in construction and by glass factories producing stained glass for the windows. It is thought that potters may have started firing their kilns with any fuel available... driftwood, packing crates or old barrel staves in which food had been preserved. This wood, contaminated with salt, gave birth to a new glazing process. Potters, who have always been inquisitive by nature, soon determined the cause of this new glaze effect and recognized its value. Much of the early American stoneware is salt glazed because of its simplicity, requiring only a bag of salt to glaze a whole kiln load.

The pottery to be glazed is placed in the kiln as greenware with a glaze lining the inside. When the kiln is close to its peak temperature, salt is introduced to the fire. Salt is sodium chloride, and at these elevated temperatures it vaporizes. The sodium combines with silica in the clay forming glass. Thus the glaze is made from the very uppermost layer of the pot itself! Along with the salt, the minerals in the wood ash settle on the pots and contribute to the glaze. As the flame and salt vapors dance around the pieces, interesting and unpredictable patterns are created.

The new kiln is a tool necessary not only to recreate work reminiscent of early American potters, but also allows modern potters the ability to continue to explore the potential of this unique firing method.

To help fund this project, I have agreed to make a limited edition of "Jugs & Mugs" that I will donate to the Village. These pieces will be signed, dated, numbered and fired in the first firing of the new kiln. These "Jugs & Mugs" are available for purchase by Sauder Village Members, Volunteers and Employees on a first come, first served basis until quantities are gone. If you would like to order one of these limited edition pieces, call the Village Gift Shop at 800.590.9755. If you would like to become a Sauder Village Member, please call Sharon Fellers at 800.590.9755.

Click here to see the progress of this new kiln.