Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-02-06
VIRGINIA POTTERY PLANT
TOLD OF BY HASKIN
Daily Letter by Frederic j. Haskin

I the dishes and then stacked in the
kiln. Men loading the kilns can be
seen going from the loading trays to
the ovens, each carrying a filled sag
gar in hi arms and balancing one
or two Of the containers on his head.
After 48 hours firing at about
$500 degrees Fahrenheit, the ware Is
whittier and 1t has a slight ring when
struck. 1t is no longer brittle, but it
still looks rough like q paper plate.
A glaze coating is applied, and the
ware is fired again for "a hours until
1t is hard and glossy.
In this second firing the kilns can
not be packed SO tightly as in the
first. The glaze would cause the
plates to stick together If they were
Laid n on top of another In the
saggars. To prevent this, pins are
fitted into little grooves in the sides
on these pins so that it does not
touch the dish below or above 1t.
One Noisy Room
From this fire the china Zoos into
the only very noisy room in the
plant. AS yoL enter this room a
shrill sound of dishes being scraped
assails your ears. The pins on which
each plate rested have left little
rough Jumps on the china and girls
in this room are vigorously scraping
the roughness off with metal instru-
ments.
The decorating processes which
follow are particularly impressive
because of the dexterous handwork
involved. Although everyone In
these shops works at a rapid rate
the crafts shop atmosphere remains.
There is a studio smell of turpentine
and paint about the decorating
shops. Some of the workers sit at
tables handling brushes and paints.
just as the maker of hand-painted
china does, except that these work.
ers paint far more swiftly and with
extreme precision.
Some mother-of-pearl luster ware
ready for firing is on one table. 1t
has none of the rainbow lights seen
in the finished luster product. In
stead, 1t is a motley brown. Before
they are fired most luster paints can
be identified only by the labels on
the bottles. Rose, green, chamois,
mother-of-pearl, all the colors OF
luster paint are a light coffee tint
when they r applied to the china.
1t is the firing hat turns the paint
into the irridescent coating seen on
IilS ware III III sup
The lusters are applied with a
brush. Color designs require a diff
ferent method in a large plant. At
a long table a row of workers is
decorating plates with the yer pop
ular b1uebirds. One cir quickly ap-
plies a Goa of some kind of varnish
to a plate; the next sticks transfer
papers bearing the design On several
points about the plate rim: and a
third rubs the transfer color in and
slips the dish into a tank of water.
When the plate is dried it goes to
a man sitting at a banding wheel.
He lays the plate on the wheel, dips
his brush in a dark brown liquid and
as the plate spins ound before him
he d~exterously guides the brush to
make a narrow brown band on the
rim. After the third and final firing
to set the colors, this dark brown
band will be shiny gold.
Pottery making has been thought
by some experts to represent the
earliest dawn of civilization. 1t is
strange that OF all the importa:
crafts and industries only this oldest
craft should today retain its historic
{ status and simple, time-tried
methods.