Elkmont couple fired up about their pottery

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Dan Pfeiffer throws a pot at Pfeiffer Fire Arts in Elkmont. He and his wife Laurel have been production potters since 2003 and sell their wares at craft shows. They also teach pottery making basics and kiln loading and firing as well as offering firing services to other potters. News Courier/Kim Rynders
The Pfeiffer’s use an array of colorful glazes to accent their handmade, high-fired stoneware. They have developed their own set of food-safe glazes and can make anything from one of their unique cornbread baking dishes to distinctively colored dishes, platters, serving bowls, spoon rests or pitchers. News Courier/Kim Rynders
Sometimes the odd emerges in an artist’s studio. Here, Laurel shows off a strange but handsome dragon-like piece of pottery. News Courier/Kim Rynders
Laurel Pfeiffer explains how colored liquid clay is used to form the bursts on this plate. News Courier/Kim Rynders
Forming a pot requires strength as well as deftness. Here, Dan Pfeiffer’s hands transform a lump of clay into a pot in no time, but the process, like playing a musical instrument, requires the body to memorize the movements needed to make the art. News Courier/Kim Rynders

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September 9, 2010

By Jean Cole jean@athensnews-courier.com The News Courier Thu Sep 09, 2010, 02:00 AM CDT

— Dan and Laurel Pfeiffer of Elkmont took up pottery several decades ago then put it on a shelf.

Necessity urged them to bring it back out.

“When we realized we would never be able to retire, we thought, ‘What can we do to produce income and do until we are ancient?’ ” Laurel joked.

Both had made pottery 20 or 30 years before and both enjoyed it.

In 2003, they began gradually building a studio behind their home at 25659 Oak Grove Road and, eventually, Pfeiffer Fire Arts and Fiber Inc., became what it is today.

The Pfeiffers are production potters who specialize in functional pottery that can be both useful and beautiful. They sell their wares at craft shows and in their studio gallery, and they also accept special orders if you have something in mind.

“We work together well,” said Dan, who is also a software scientist for Kratos, one of the defense contractors that work at Redstone Arsenal.

Dan throws many of the pots, and Laurel adds texture to them using various tools. Laurel also applies colored liquid clay to make bursts and other patterns on pots, spoon rests and platters, then applies glaze that comes alive during firing. Copper in the glaze turns it red or green, Cobalt carbonate turns it blue, and various combinations of compounds and oxygen yield other colors.

“It is a science, but there is a lot of unknown,” Dan said.

For example, if you want a red glaze, you better fire it on a rainy day.

“It always turns out better,” he said.

In addition to making any kind of stoneware, the couple teaches others how to make pottery.

For only $175, Dan and Laurel offer beginner or advanced pottery-making classes at the studio. In four sessions, they can teach a beginner how to prepare clay for the potter’s wheel, how to center the clay on the wheel and how to manipulate the clay to create small basic cylinders and bowls.

“It is like playing a musical instrument,” Laurel said. “Keep practicing until you do it simply.”

Once you finish your pot or platter or whatever, you will bisque fire it, glaze it and then high-fire it, which means cooking it at 2,300 to 2,400 degrees — as hot as a volcano, Dan said.

In addition to teaching pottery classes, the couple can teach others how to load and fire the kiln and how to create glazes. Aspiring or accomplished potters can pay the Pfeiffers to fire their creations for them.

Groups who simply want to see the life cycle of pottery, can pay for a tour of the studio and skip the mud.

For more information about Pfeiffer Fire Arts, go online to www.pfeifferfirearts.com or call 256-874-5579.

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Elkmont couple fired up about their pottery

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