Help us install our kiln! (at long last!)

!!We're looking to raise £1000 to help us install our kiln - £650 of which will be to set up a separate electrical input in the kiln's current home, the remaining £350 will be to hire a kiln specialist to convert and service the kiln!! For more info read our story below

Lugus Ceramics has been on quite the journey this year! At the beginning of 2023 we were generously donated this beautiful (and spacious!) kiln by our local Barnfield College, to whom we owe many thanks! We ran our 'fall in love with clay' series of free ceramics workshops over the course of the year, as well as our first (of many) pots + pints evening, sharing the joy, creative potential and therapeutic benefits of our beloved clay with our fellow Lutonians. We also successfully registered as a community interest company, allowing us to apply to various pots of funding for future projects we have planned to make ceramics accessible to people in the town who would really benefit from playing with clay! We have been building relationships with various other charities and organisations within the town so we can 

We have also faced many hiccups and hurdles in our journey! The main one being that this gorgeous kiln that we have tucked safely away in our garage, we haven't been able to use! We thought it would all be smooth sailing once we secured the kiln, thinking we could install it easy peasy and get goingggg with all the plans we have, but, alas, the kiln requires a 3-phase electricity source (cry!) We looked into how much it would cost to get 3-phase electricity installed in the garage, but it was upwards of £2000 - which, as the garage is only temporary home of the kiln while we look for a forever home to open up our community studio, we thought was a not economical! Around this time we were offered another kiln which was actually single phase and easily installed (yay!)... only when we went to pick it up, the poor thing was too big to get out of the doorway! - (I know what you're thinking, how did it get in there then? - it's still a mystery to us!) At this point we were pretty frustrated and disheartened. We'd been ferrying people's pots over 20 miles to the nearest kiln-hiring locations, which is costly, time and fuel consuming, and also comes with higher risk of breakages (eek!) - the way we've been functioning is not sustainable! The silver lining of this  flop of a kiln-collection we had though, was an expert kiln-maestro who informed us of the fact that we can CONVERT A 3-PHASE TO A SINGLE PHASE?!?!?!? We had no idea! - and we'd talked to looooaads of people about our struggles, and none of them until this point had said this was even a possibility! 

All this to say, we are finally at a stage where we can get a kiln firing in Luton!!!!! All we are asking is for a little monetary support to get us set up. We have a quote from a local electrician to install a secondary power source in the garage so when we're firing the kiln it doesn't turn off all the lights in the house! This will be approximately £650, with an additional £350 to bring in the specialist kiln-maestro to convert and service the kiln for us! We are hoping to do all of this before the end of January so we can ramp up all the different ceramics workshops we've been dreaming of sharing with the people of Luton (and beyond). I know this is an awful time to ask for donations as we're all skint and spent-up on our loved ones for Christmas but anything you could spare to help us start 2024 not with a bang but with a very controlled fire that's hot enough to vitrify (turn clay to ceramics) would be a true blessing! 

Anyone who donates will get a juicy discount from up-coming workshops also, so your money is not lost! We just want everyone in Luton to be able to play with clay and have their masterpieces last FOREVER!!! 

Many thanks for making it through our ramble and please do donate, share and tell your friends and family! 

See you in the new year! xoxo