Kethira-720TR-Harn-Chybisa-Burzyn-Kirlin
Potter (Kerlin of Teslan)
Like most of the businesses with wares to sell, the window is fairly small, high enough to be out of the reach of small children, and fronted with a lattice of wooden bars. It is easy to see his wares but they are far enough back to be out of reach. There isn’t any glass in the window frame, that kind of glass is just a dream to most folk. Once the shutters are closed at night, the place would be sealed up tight and secure. [1]
Kerlin makes a variety of things. Small clay figurines with soaked-in tints rest on woven furniture in one corner, and look solid enough for casual handling. Although they don’t have any thin breakable parts, the level of sculpted detail is enough to recognize the matron, the hard-working father figure, and the three young children – two young boys and an older girl. [1]
Near them is a nice pair of clay goblets with a dark blue glaze. Clearly, this potter has access to a hot kiln, much better than the usual method of building a smoldering fire in a pit filled with greenware then covering it with dirt to prevent uncontrolled combustion and carefully blasting air into the bottom of the pit through a hollow tube. A really hot fire, one hot enough to melt glazes like this, took the kind of heat-resistant bricks found in a forge or a master potter’s kiln. Very expensive, and difficult to get right – which was why there were so few of them and why they remained near-secrets within the guild. [1]
There is a stack of stoneware plates, stacked up six high to show how consistently they were sized, plus a set of stoneware cups in a nice pattern to match the plates. Up on a higher shelf to one side is a cunning set of figurines; a small caravan made in stoneware, with three wagons each pulled by a pair of oxen, each carrying a driver and a load of cargo. The little crates and barrels look like separate pieces, all tinted in pale hues. The drivers and the oxen are done in the same style as the family; heavy blocky figures with features sketched in. [1]
Kerlin is an older man with thinning gray hair and thirty pounds extra around his waist. He moves like someone with twinges of pain, likely from too many years bent over a workbench. [1]