Since the beginning of Takeawei our impact on the environment has been front of mind – clay is a finite source after all.
The beauty of being a small business is being part of every step of the process. From our clay being sourced from Keane’s, a family run business, through to packaging our ceramics in biodegradable bubblewrap, recycled box packaging and compostable peanuts for cushioning, we believe it's these small choices that matter.
The 'mystery glaze' is a combo of these glazes, plus many more. L to R: Shino White, Green Pools, Nightfall, the far right is the Mystery Glaze.
In many ceramics studios, as with any type of production, there is often waste, so at Takeawei we wanted to reduce our impact on the environment by reclaiming our waste clay and glaze run off. Living on the Surf Coast and being surfers who love the ocean, we want to help keep our waterways as unpolluted as possible.
For the Reclaim Collection, the clay is collected from pieces that haven’t worked on the wheel and remnants of pots broken before they’re fired. This clay is then pugmilled to take the air out of the clay and ready to use again.
After glazing a kiln load of pieces, Chela washes the utensils and tubs, collecting the leftover glaze in a bucket labelled 'mystery glaze'. Instead of this glaze going down the sink and into our waterways, it's kept for future use on the Reclaim Collection. The real mystery is not where the glaze will end up, but what colour the glaze will become as each bucket can have up to ten different glazes washed into it! This makes every batch in the Reclaim Collection unique. This time around, Chela chose not to sieve the glaze to remove any large particles and the results are beautiful spots of cobalt blue in a softer blue base.
Thankyou for supporting small scale ceramics production, your choices really do make a difference :)
Check out the Reclaim Collection here.
