Why I Work With Mid Fire Porcelain

Porcelain clay can be harder to use than most ceramic clays, less forgiving and regularly humbling. But nothing else behaves quite like it. I love its silky quality, its translucency, and the beautiful way it takes on movement and texture.

What is mid fire porcelain?

Porcelain is usually categorised by the temperature at which it is fired. High fire porcelain, the kind historically associated with fine Chinese and European ceramics, fires at very high temperatures, typically cone 10 and above, around 1280 to 1300 degrees Celsius. Mid fire porcelain fires at a lower range, typically between cone 4 and cone 6, roughly 1180C to 1240C.

There’s a common assumption that high-fire is better, and a mid fire porcelain is not a “true porcelain”. In practice, a well-formulated mid-fire porcelain clay, handled with care and fired correctly, can achieve the same fine, dense, luminous result as its high-fire equivalent, with a lower energy cost. That matters to me as a small studio maker. Every firing costs energy, and choosing a clay that achieves the same result with a lower footprint is important.

Porcelain remembers

Every movement you make during forming, every direction you roll, curve, stretch or compress the clay, is retained in its structure. When the piece goes into the kiln and the clay heats up and begins to release tension, it tries to return to those remembered positions. A piece that looks completely flat before firing can warp, curl or twist as it follows its own memory back.

For jewellery, where I’m often looking for consistent forms, this is one of the most demanding things to manage. It means thinking carefully about how I prepare and handle the clay from the very beginning. The direction you roll it, the number of passes, the way you turn and support a piece during drying, all of it influences what will happen in the kiln. I’ve developed my own approaches over time through lots of trial and error. I still occasionally get surprised. For larger objects, like wall hangings and vases, the challenge increases. I’m always reminded not to rush, my best work is created in a blissful creative zone, where I can really take my time and slow everything down.

Shrinkage and why it matters for jewellery

Porcelain also shrinks significantly during both drying and firing, sometimes by up to 16 percent of its original size. Every piece has to be formed larger than its intended finished size, with the shrinkage rate built in from the start.

What makes this more complex is that clay memory affects the direction and nature of that shrinkage. It isn’t always perfectly even or predictable. Getting consistent finished dimensions across a small batch of pieces takes a lot of testing, careful observation, and adjustment. It’s one of those aspects of the work that’s invisible in the finished piece but represents a significant amount of learning behind the scenes.

The detail and the glaze

Porcelain holds surface detail beautifully, which is one of the things I love most about it. But it will only take a clean impression when the clay is at exactly the right stage of dryness. Too wet and the detail is mushy; too dry and the impression is shallow or the clay cracks. That window can be quite narrow, and working within it consistently across a batch of pieces has required a lot of practice and patience.

Glazing mid fire porcelain has its own set of considerations, and requires repeated testing, especially glaze development. I often concentrate on simple and translucent glazes that don’t bury texture, and retain the translucency of the porcelain as much as possible. A favourite challenge is to limit supplies in my studio, seeking glaze formulations that work across a smaller library of raw materials. Less can be more.

What translucency actually looks like

When porcelain is formed thinly enough and fired correctly, it becomes slightly translucent, allowing light to pass through it and giving the piece a soft, luminous quality that’s genuinely unlike anything else in ceramics. 

Achieving it in mid-fire porcelain requires forming to the right thickness (which has become more of a feeling now), managing clay memory and hitting the right temperature. When it comes together the result is very special.

Porcelain as a gift

Porcelain is a popular gift for 18th and 20th wedding anniversaries. If you’re looking for something handmade and considered for either of those milestones, or honestly for any occasion where you want to give something special, porcelain is a good place to start.

The Snowdrift White Porcelain Studs are simple and wearable, a good entry point into the range. For everday wear, the Jelly White Porcelain Earrings are very versatile, showcasing the translucency of porcelain with a delicate textured pattern front and back. The simple beauty of these earrings is something I always come back to. 

The Snowdrift Porcelain Statement Earrings let the material speak entirely for itself, smooth and untextured, showcasing organic shapes. The Porcelain Oxidised Silver Hoop Earrings combine hand textured porcelain with darkened sterling silver hoops for a contemporary contrast.

Other World Porcelain Wall Art moves the material off the body entirely and onto the wall where these beautiful pieces of wall art can be admired. Much love has been poured into crafting these special pieces.

You can find my full porcelain collection here.