Dinner plate, 27 cm
The base of the service. A wide rim, a slight well, glazed to the edge.
Bath · one service, thrown to order
One table service, made to be added to
One service, and the table it is set on.
Twelve forms thrown to the same weight and finished in one glaze, so a table set this year can grow a piece in the next. Priced per piece, and every piece says what it serves.
The Field Service
Twelve forms, priced by the piece
One service, thrown to one weight and finished in one glaze. A dinner plate and a serving platter are the same clay and the same firing, so a set can grow a piece at a time.
Side plate, 21 cm
Pasta bowl, 23 cm
Serving platter, 38 cm
Jug, two pints
Beaker, 300 ml
The hand behind it
Twelve forms, one wheel, one glaze
Bath
Marl & Clay is a two-person tableware studio in Bath, and The Field Service is the only thing it makes. Every form is thrown on the wheel to a fixed weight, dried under cloth, fired to biscuit, dipped in the same glaze and fired again.
A service is not a catalogue of shapes: the plate, the bowl and the platter are the same clay at three sizes, which is why a set bought over three years still reads as one set. The glaze is tested on a tile from every firing, and the tile goes in the box.
The making
The wheel, then the kiln
Four minutes, no music: clay centred, a plate pulled, the glaze poured, the kiln opened.
The firing
One firing a month
Tables this service is on
A restaurant, a household, a wedding list
“Forty covers a night for three years. We have replaced two plates, and they were both dropped by us.”
“We started with six plates and added a platter and a jug a year later. Nobody can see the join.”
“The wedding list was the service, and every guest bought a piece of it. We still use the whole set.”
The practical questions
Adding to a set, and living with it
Yes. The service is thrown to fixed weights and finished in one glaze, so a piece made next year is the same piece. Glaze firings vary slightly; that is the craft, and it is what keeps a set from looking printed.
The workshop
Off the London Road, Bath
The workshop is open on collection days, and the kiln is worth seeing warm.
Marl & Clay, the workshop off the London Road, Bath BA1
Directions →Boxed in twos and threes and insured. UK and Europe; collection from the workshop on Thursday to Saturday.
The commission
Covers, forms, glaze, date
How many covers, which forms, which glaze and when the table needs them. A service that is not the twelve forms is a commission, and it starts here.