Woodland floral table

The creation of the woodland botanical table is a tedious, meditative task. I'll take you through the process.

 

Flower gathering-I look for botanicals with texture and not too thick of stems; queen Ann’s lace, ironweed, goldenrod, ferns, yarrow, daisies etc

 

Preparing the clay starts with wedging. This task is kneading balls about 7# of clay until the air bubbles are out.

​

Making the slabs-lots and lots of slabs 3/8” thick with the slab roller.  I take the wedged clay and push  it to about 1.5”  flat. Then open the slab roller to 1” and place the clay between canvas and roll through. Each pass through the slab roller, I decrease the thickness by 1/8". Once the slab is down to 3/8",  it is moved from the canvas to concrete bats. Each clay ball gets slab rolled about 6 times.

​

Making the tiles-lay out each slab of clay and smooth one side with a rubber rib. This is the side the flowers will be placed on. Flip the slab and use a jagged rib to add texture on the bottom side so the tiles have adhesion capability with the mortar. Place a piece of 1 mil plastic over the slab and press the tile cutter through the plastic into the clay. This keeps the tile cutter from getting stuck to the clay. Any excess tile trimmings get set aside and used again. The plastic can be used again and again while tile cutting.

​

Lay out the tiles in the size of the table to make. On this table I did 10 wide and 8 deep. The end result will be 40x32 but when the tiles are first made, this table was 44x35. That’s right-10% shrinkage for this clay body. 

​

Place the botanicals strategically on the clay and then carefully roll them into the clay body with a small rounded rolling pin.

 

Now I weight the tiles so they don’t curl. This means taking plywood pieces and placing them gently over the tiles and then adding weights. If this step is skipped, the tiles will have a slight curl to them and when eating dinner at the table, the plate will wobble (ask me how I know). The tiles are weighted at least overnight. Patience is key with this process

​

After at least 24 hours, I remove the weights and clean up the tiles. At this stage, the tiles are joined by the flower stems. Each stem has to be cut at the tile seam with an exacto blade while leaving the flower embedded in the tile. After all seams are cut, I clean each tile with a damp sponge to get rid of rough edges, roller marks or just bad spots. This is key because a fingerprint will show up later in the staining process.

​

Let the tiles dry. This can take up to a week depending on humidity

​

Once dry, do a final check and wipe if necessary. The back of each tile is marked with a code so I can put the puzzle pieces back together again. The first horizontal row has A1 through 8, the second row B 1-8. Again-ask me how I know to do this step . I have to be super careful with the tiles at this point, they are extremely breakable. One tile broken will end the project. The tiles are stacked and set aside until I have a kiln load. 

​

Kiln firing-the tiles are stacked maximum 5 high during the kiln process to to prevent warping and the load is fired to cone 06 (1830 degrees F). This hardens the clay but it is not vitrified—in other words, the clay will still accept stain or glaze. This firing takes 24-36 hours to heat up and cool down.  Did I mention pottery is a thing of patience.

​

After cooling, all tiles are moved to the glazing table (my Western Carolina University antique desk that has a cool non-absorbable top). I put on rubber gloves for this process. The outside perimeter tiles are dipped in Amaco Blue rutile and set aside. The flower tiles are dipped in red iron oxide and laid aside. This leaves a heavy coat of stain and the flower patterns are no longer visible. After all the tiles are dipped, I wipe away the excess stain on each tile. The stain stays in the grooves making the flower imprints pop in definition. Excess stain also has to be removed from the bottom or the tiles will stick together during the second firing.

​

Second kiln firing - the stained tiles are  loaded for a cone 6 firing (2232 degrees Fahrenheit). This temperature is based on the clay body. I use Highwater’s Brownstone clay and they provide the recommended firing temperatures. And we wait patiently 36 to 40 hours to heat and cool.

​

Unload the kiln and lay out the pattern the table and ogle at the results… the unloading of the kiln for all potters is terrifying and exciting at the same time. So much effort has gone in to the process  and so much can go wrong; stuck tiles, glaze not coming out to expectation, warping. 

​

Next is prepping the table base. I take two 3/4” plywood pieces and screw then together every 8”. Then I mix thinset mortar and spread using a 1/8” V-groove trowel. A layer of Dietre board is laid on top of that and rubbed/pressed down firmly with a rubber trowel. Then we wait 24 hours

 

After the waiting period to allow the Dietre board to dry, I mix another batch of thinset and spread with a 1/4” trowel. Each tile is then dipped in water and then placed on the thinset in the correct pattern. Dipping the tiles keep them from drying too fast and ensures good adhesion. Then we wait for another 24 hours.

​

Trimming the edges. I use either oak or poplar to trim  the tile and plywood edges. The trim is glued and nailed. 

​

Grouting-If flowers have a deep cut in the tile, I’ll cover this section with painters tape to keep grout from getting embedded into these grooves. The tiles are misted with a spray bottle to keep the grout from drying too fast. The grout is then mixed and smushed into the seams with a rubber trowel. Quickly remove excess with a wet sponge or towel. This takes lots and lots of buckets of water and wipe wipe wipe until the shoulders hurt. And then guess what, we wait another 24 hours minimum

​

I then locate table legs that match the personality of the table top and fix in place. A final sanding is done on the trimmed edges and water based polyurethane is applied. 

​

Finally the wait is over.