Building the Pizza Oven: Summer 2014

Our pizza oven is based on Andy Nassise's oven.  As a visiting artist at University of Utah, we made 15 pizza's for potters from around the area and those who came to the workshop.  What a way to spend time- fire, cooking, eating.  I was hooked. My studio assistants helped with the construction.  It was a great summer project and now is a fantastic focal point for social events held here at Rat City Studios.  Check out the EVENTS Tab in the navigation bar and join us!

Our pizza oven foundation is made from cinder block, mortared together.  Then we laid a thin cement board across the top and made a border of recycled kiln bricks around the edge.  We then poured a 2" layer of cement with a few pieces of rebar spanning the longest dimension.
A layer of recycled kiln brick was placed over this platform.  We built an arch form from 2 x 4's and plywood to hold the arch in place.  This was shimmed into place with bits of plywood. Bricks were stacked up on the arch form.  The spaces created by adding the curvature were packed with adobe.  (arch bricks would fit better, but they are not free...  we got all our recycled kiln brick from a friend).  The adobe was made with recycled slurry clay, pulverized scrapes of soft bring, sawdust, sand, some left over mortar, a little cement and water read somewhere that the consistency should hold together mostly when scrunched into a ball and dropped, rather than breaking apart completely or staying in a sticky mess.  We mixed this all with our feet on a blue tarp covering the patio.  What exfoliation!

A special thank you to Becca Headline, Steven Ruby, and Jonathan Steele for their help on this project!  The pizza oven is serving us well!