Welcome to Studio Mudlife! We're Mahanth and Shreya, the owners of a little pottery studio in Jaipur and we're super excited to welcome you here.
We sell ceramics, make on order and teach long-term and short-term pottery courses. We specialise in reduction-fired Japanese and Chinese inspired ceramics and we would love to teach you how to make your own set too, so come by and visit us!
We use the term "reduction firing" a lot and I'm sure that has you confused. So lets get into a bit about what goes on at Mudlife.
What is reduction firing?
Creating our pieces is a true labor of love. It takes two rounds of firing up our kiln (furnace) to transform raw, fragile clay into durable ceramic. And to fuel this transformation we rely heavily on three large gas cylinders.
The second round of firing is where the magic of reduction begins: this is the art of intentionally starving the kiln of oxygen at a very specific stage in the firing process.
Here we carefully cover up all the vents in the kiln to cut off air supply. But because fire needs oxygen to survive, the flames are forced to draw every last ounce of oxygen directly out of the clay body and glazes to keep the fire going. This causes the glazes to literally dance across the surface of the clay creating a dramatic chemical reaction, giving our work its complex colours and textures that cannot be replicated.
If I order a set, what can I expect?
The exact same glaze can look completely different depending on its location inside the kiln, meaning no two pieces will ever be identical.
This kind of firing requires specific glazes to react properly with the flame, which is why we make all of our glazes right here in our studio, as store bought ones cannot survive this process.
Why bother with this long process?
We intentionally chose this exhaustive method, even though it requires us to wake up at 4am and finally end the firing day at 7pm, because we absolutely love the unpredictability and character that reduction firing results in.
Opening the kiln after two days once it cools down has us waiting as eagerly as kids during trick-or-treating, every single time.
We truly hope you love the unique spirit of these pieces just as much as we love creating them.