They’re all fired up down on Harlow Street.

“The kiln has been fired and we’ll unload it today or tomorrow,” Jill Burns, co-owner of the Fire Works clay studios, said Wednesday. “It’s one particular person’s work and then that will do it. Everyone else is ready.”

That final, still-cooling kiln load of handmade pots belonged to Julia Cardone, one of 14 clay artists who will display their work at an open house and gallery show at the Fire Works tonight and tomorrow. The event is the third annual spring open house that Burns and co-owner Anne Dickenson have hosted at the studios, located in the old Sprinkler Factory building at 38 Harlow St., off Lincoln Street in Worcester. This year, however, there are some significant differences.

One is that the Fire Works now has its own gallery to showcase pottery made just across the hall in its studios. The gallery will be open throughout the two-day open house and then again from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays through June 3. Beyond that, the new 300-square-foot gallery’s future rests in the hands of the 11 potters who rent space at the Fire Works and the 15 or so who come by on a regular basis to fire their pots in Burns’ and Dickenson’s big, state-of-the-art gas kiln.

“We’ve only planned for the next month so it’s going to be open this coming weekend and then for the next three Saturdays,” Burns said. “And then we’re going to get all the members together and see if it’s something that they want to carry on with on a regular basis. But it’s going to have to be a cooperative effort because we have to staff it.”

The space became available after neon glass artist Jose Cruz closed up his shop in the Sprinkler Factory last fall to take a full-time job at a local sign-making company. “We walked by it every day and thought, ‘This would make a great gallery,’ ” Burns said. But it was too daunting. “You don’t want it so big you get lost in it because then you’d have to call it a museum,” Dickenson said.

Things looked much more manageable after building owner Paul Conger divided the space into three sections. The decision to go with a gallery was made and suddenly the Fire Works potters’ creating-making-baking function and their sales events have adjoining but separate spaces. “We really had to disrupt our workspace in order to do a sale. This way we won’t have to,” Burns said.

Both the gallery and the Fire Works’ 3,200-square-foot studio area will be open during the open house. The artists will be available to show their work and talk about the ideas behind it.

The open house this year comes on the heels of the Worcester Center for Crafts’ big annual pottery invitational show, held just two weekends ago. Does that mean potential local pottery buyers have too much on their handmade plates?

“As a group we talked about it,” Burns said. In previous years, the two events were held further apart. “We knew about the invitational because, as potters, we like to go to that show, so we’ll just have to see,” she said. “The membership decided it was a good weekend and that’s what we decided to go with.”

Actually, they’re hoping for a fairly bad weekend — weatherwise, anyway — and they may well get their wish. When the weather is glorious this time of year people go picnicking, hiking, garden-center hopping or just stay home and do yard work. The forecast, as of mid-week, called for dreary, chilly, let’s-go-ceramics-shopping weather today and tomorrow. The Craft Center got “hit” with sunny, beautiful weather for its show April 28 to 30, prompting one former board member to muse that perhaps next year it should be held in March when the weather is lousy. The show, with a new curator and a new active format that included public pot throwing, was considered successful even though attendance was down a bit.

The Fire Works and Craft Center events aren’t in direct competition, Burns and Dickenson say. The invitational hosts clay artists who are well-established, well-known, and well-advanced in their careers — from near and quite far. “We are a local community of potters, with many of our artists starting to establish a presence and grow a following,” Burns said. Pieces for sale at the Fire Works event tend to be more affordable, a reflection of that up-and-coming aspect, she said.

If you head down hilly Harlow Street wondering where the Fire Works is, just look for the flag flying from the side of an old factory building.

“We have a lot of resourceful people keeping their eyes open for some good stuff at the right price,” Dickenson said. “They find things at yard sales.” So what will the flag they plan to fly say?

“It says ‘welcome’ because they found it at a yard sale and that’s what it said,” Dickenson said. “Maybe down the line we’ll get a custom sign made, but for now it’s all step by step.”

Ceramic pieces available at the open house and show include tableware and garden pieces as well as sculptural and decorative works. Artists for this year’s event, in addition to Dickenson, Burns and Cardone, are Kathryn Balistrieri, Deborah Diemente, Karen Durlach, Mary Edwards, Adele Firshein, Kristen Kieffer, June LeDuc, Geri Moriarty, Mark Spencer and Barbara Shank Wilson. Many of these potters have participated in regional and national shows.

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“Salt Air & Open Spaces,” an exhibition by Holden impressionist painter Gerard Blouin, will be on view in the program room of Gale Free Library in Holden through May 26. In an artist statement, the Rhode Island School of Design grad and former designer, art director and communications manager for several companies says: “I paint outside throughout the year in all kinds of weather. Only through direct observation am I able to capture the ever-changing colors and moods of the landscape.”

His spot at the Gale Free showcase is becoming a popular one. Library director Jane Dutton says various local artists have been booked for the space through November.

Nancy Sheehan can be reached at nsheehan@telegram.com.