Ultra Mega Ceramics

Peach Blossom

2011-05-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

Well this post is a first. It's all about a pot that I didn't make.

About a year ago I was visiting an out of town nursery and I spotted a beautiful peach blossom vase. It was remarkable, everything that I had read a peach blossom should be. It was mostly white with a large copper red splotch on one side. The copper red area faded in nicely and at it's center was a deep variegated purple. Truly was one of the most beautiful pots I have ever seen in person. For reasons I don't recall I decided not to buy the pot.

A year has past. I went back to the nursery recently. It's over an hour drive from my house and they only open when they feel like it, which is usually one weekend a month, in the spring and summer. It's run by a retired couple. I went straight to the spot where I saw the peach blossom pot last year. No luck. And I shouldn't have expected it to be there. It was truly museum quality. It was one of those finds like finding a Picasso at a garage sale. I would have expected the signature on the pot to turn out to be a Japanese National Treasure or something.

I started wandering the grounds of the nursery, looking at odd colored irises, exotic lilies, when I spotted this vase in a different portion of the nursery. There is was, still for sale. I didn't make the same mistake twice. I immediately scooped it up.

I did check for a signature - because seriously, best pot I have ever seen outside a museum. Nothing. No signature, no mark, nothing.

The picture doesn't convey how the pot feels in the hand. It's light, balanced. The glaze is thick but there are no runs. The glaze around the foot is perfect, no drips.

The beautiful no signature pot sold for... $15.

Back to my pottery ... not much new to report. I have been very busy around my house with spring arriving so I have been spending less time at the studio. In fact I haven't been there to work (I was there for a sale) in a couple of weeks. My yard and house need the attention right now. Once summer gets into full swing and my yard is under control I will have more time to get dirty in the studio.

Pots for the upcoming sale

2011-04-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

Upcoming sale

2011-04-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

Posters for our upcoming sale...

More pictures

2011-04-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

So these are the pots that were trapped at the last studio. I finally rescued them.

This first picture is a couple of small bottles. My awesome wife asked for some oil bottles. So I started throwing small bottles and making goofy little stoppers for them. Somehow the last studio lost two of my stoppers so... now they're vases ;)

Now the next picture is a lidded vase I threw. It's glazed with an iron yellow. On top of the iron yellow I dripped a mixture of grestely borate and rutile (75/25). The GB/Rutile mixture behaved really strangely. It looks like it separated. Odd but cool looking.

The last picture is a close up of the GB/Rutile dots.

A couple more pics from the latest kiln load

2011-04-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

All lorio ash. I actually like this one a lot. Right color, the glaze was sprayed on and I was able to get it exactly how I wanted.

This one... not so much. This is more of a "don't do this" kind of picture:

This is a crystal blue on top of a chrome/tin red. See that little band of light blue/purple right where the two glazes meet? That's what I was going for. I used waaay too much crystal blue and the oxy red was too light. Ugly pot.

New pots

2011-04-03T18:42:00.001-07:00

Fresh from the kiln:

Inside is iron yellow though you can't see it in this picture. Top outside is lorio as modified to cone 6, bottom portion of the outside is my cone 6 version of Richard Areni's Obsidian 3 glaze.

My faux celedon. It's a little much faux and little too little celedon for my tastes.

The 4 iron reds I was testing came out ok. The old standby, Bailey's Red was by far the best. I am giving all 4 a second firing in a bisque load to see if any of them respond well to that before I make up my mind which one to use.

I had two other pots in the kiln that came out fairly nice One was a large round vase that had strictly lorio ash on it. Came out very nice, I left it at the studio as we have a sale in a few days. Maybe I can get a few dollars for it. The other pot was a large bottle, top portion was a dark blue crystal, the bottom portion was oxy red. Came out as it should. It just looked better in my mind. That one is also at the studio, Maybe it will sing to someone, I think it's fugly.

Long time coming....

2011-04-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

Tonight I loaded and started firing a kiln load of my stuff in the new studio. It's been about 18 months since I loaded my own kiln. It will fire over night and I may be able to unload tomorrow night. More likely Monday.

Firing a couple glazes I have used many times. I also have four tests for iron reds plus a faux celedon, my clear plus 0.5% copper carb.

Will post pictures Monday night.

So maybe the fourth time is a charm.

2011-03-10T12:35:00.000-08:00

Since I moved to Seattle I have attended three different studios. I am about to move to my fourth.

Initially I tried to stay at my original studio. It was great, loved the people, but it was about 35 miles away. Too far. I didn’t want to drive 45 minutes each way to trim a single pot. So I left in search of a closer studio.

I started going to Pottery Northwest. PNW is a great place. I learned a lot, met some super cool people. I learned from potters that I consider top shelf. I got to experience fuel based kilns – meaning reduction. But PNW was/is very expensive. Over $300 every 10 weeks. Plus materials. So I went looking for a cheaper studio.

I found that my local community college has an open studio “class”. Basically you sign up, come in and do whatever the heck you want. This was working for me. Cheap, close by, less than 3 miles from my house. I was pretty happy. Then randomly for no particular reason I looked for pottery studios in my neighborhood on Craig’s list. I found a studio 3 blocks from my house.

So I am moving my traveling road show to my fourth studio in the last few years. The studio appears to be pretty great. It’s walking distance to my house. I get 24/7 access. I get to fire my own work. They are in the process of building a spray booth. There appears to be about 6 potters working in this studio. I am pretty excited.

I am hoping most of my glazes transfer easily. I am also hoping that the easier access will allow me to do more work. Between the restrictions visiting the college (only allowed in on Saturdays and late Tuesday nights) and some much needed home repairs I haven’t completed any work for a couple of months. I hope to change that.

Ah sweet sweet chaos

2011-02-18T14:05:00.000-08:00

I really like the Val's Turquoise Matte, so I decided to try it with different oxides. The results surprised me a little.

Val's Matte with RIO.

Again I am using my camera phone so the picture kind of sucks. The glaze has a lot of movement. More than any other oxide. It cleared a little, it's not as matte. It's a very pretty pale yellow.

Val's Matte with Chrome.

A wonderful mottled green with yellow-ish spots. A truly unexpected surprise.

Val's Matte with Manganese Dioxide.

It doesn't come through in the picture but it's a wonderful matte dark burgundy.

Val' Matte with Nickel Carbonate.

This one was a disappointment. I was hoping for a purple, I got a nasty tan.

Three new glazes

2011-02-12T11:14:00.001-08:00

A new iron yellow. I like this one and will be using it.

A cone 6 crackle. This is nice but I like the other crackle I tested better so this one will not get much love.

This is a modification of Kuan Crackle in John Britt's book. My crappy phone camera really doesn't reveal the difference between the two glazes but in person the Kuan has a nicer white color and more depth.

Lastly a shot of some bowls with Val's Turquoise Matte. Again the camera sucks. Looks a lot better in person. Using a phone camera with my kitchen counter lighting. I need to get a real camera.

More of Val's ________ Matte

2011-02-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

So I was reading through Robin Hopper's "Ceramic Spectrum" and I realized that the Val's Turquoise Matte I recently tested and love could be extended. Robin Hopper's book as a section of flux saturated glazes - and nearly all coloring oxides look good in cone6 oxidation in a flux saturated glaze. Val's Turquoise Matte is obviously not on of the recipes listed in Mr. Hopper's book but it is similar enough that I expect to get some good results. I am mixing up Val's Flux Saturated Matte with the following:

RIO - 5% - I expect this to be the elusive iron yellow I have been seeking.
Chrome - 3% - I am hoping for a yellow/green.
Manganese Dioxide - 3.5% - Purple maybe?
Nickel Carb - 3% - Hoping for Muave/Purple

It will be a few weeks before I get the glazes mixed and fired but I'll post the results.

Val's Turquoise Matte

2011-01-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

Val’s Turquoise Matte
Neph Syn 61.54
Strontium Carb 20.88
OM4 6.59
Silica 7.69
Lithium Carbonate 3.3
Copper Carb 3.5
Bentonite 4

Picture makes it look a lot darker than it actually is.

Second batch of test tiles

2011-01-18T21:11:00.001-08:00

The second batch of test tiles came out better than the first batch.

I did a second attempt at a cone 6 black temmoku. It came out Ok. It looks like a temmoku but it's dark brown, not black. A few tweaks and this one should be good. Not sure what tweaks yet.

The second one was an attempt at an iron yellow. It is beige-ish. Not too bad. The cool thing is that completely unintentionally I has some jun like opalescence. I think I am going to tweak this one to bring out the opalescence.

Lastly was the real winner, a turquoise matte. This one came out really wonderful. It has depth and movement. It's a dark turquoise, almost blue. It is variegated with a lot of movement. The glaze is Val's Turquoise Matte. Val Cushing is the man. I have seen this recipe around the net and always wanted to try it. I wish I had tried it years ago.

I have pictures of all three but misplaced the cord to quickly move the pictures to my laptop. I'll post the photos in the next few days.

First batch of test tiles for the new year

2011-01-09T10:25:00.001-08:00

I got the first batch of test tiles out of the kiln for the new year. Some good, some not so good.

The black temmoku looked terrible. The iron red line test looked meh all the way from 5% to 14%. I think I need to switch base recipes for that one.

The old stand by recipes that had drastically over fired previously all came out great; lorio ash, nuka, seiji nuka.

My oxy red came out very streaky. I am going to scrape that recipe as well. It uses cornwall stone which I have learned is no longer being mined.

I would jump in with both feet today in mixing up new batches to test but I am down hard with the flu plus... I am out of test tiles. I have to make some more.

Wandering with a purpose

2011-01-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

I have been doing a lot of reading lately about Chun Wen Wang and Brother Thomas. I am a glaze junkie and these two seem to me to be the high point in American potters with regards to glazes.

Unfortunately neither left too many bread crumbs for others to follow. I think this is a good thing. The journey is half the fun. The detective work, the exploring.

Books focusing on Brother Thomas exist. I managed to get one through my local library. I enjoyed his essays on art. But at the risk of being an ass myself, art is personal for me. I am not interested in defining art as an expression of divinity. For me a pot just doesn't represent that much. Maybe it's why I consider my pots craft, not art. Anyway, Brother Thomas' essays aside getting the book was worth it for one picture. One glorious picture that said more to me than any of his essays did. It was a picture in a series of Brother Thomas glazing a pot, he was spraying the pot but in a single picture in the series he had stopped spraying and was sprinkling a dry powder on the pot.

So what does that picture of Brother Thomas sprinkling a dry powder on a freshly glazed pot tell me? It tells me the super delicious accents that Brother Thomas lavished on his beautiful temmoku pots were not oxide wash accents. They were something dry - could be a number of things; rutile, straight iron oxide, bone ash, a borate compound. Not sure. But I know I now have a new tool in my toolbox - dry application of accents. A lot of folks do this with wood ash. But my wood ash doesn't melt at cone 6 so I had given that up. Time to dust off the technique and see what I can achieve with various chemicals.

Looking into Chun Wen Wang's work has been more detective work. There are no books about Wang. There is one - count 'em one - article about his work in Ceramics Monthly back in 1997. Yeah, I found a copy and bought it. I am obsessed enough to track down a 1997 back issue of Ceramics Monthly. The article gives nothing away. There is a recipe and it was Wang's starting point. Nothing too noteworthy. But there is a lot written that Wang works with a glass-in-glass technique. Using multiple glass making chemicals within a single glaze to create his glazes.

I started researching glass-in-glass. Something (don't recall what) lead me to Nigel Wood's book Chinese Glazes. It seems that this glass-in-glass technique dates back to 9th century China. It is achieved using high phosphorus low alumina glazes. The phosphorus is the secondary glass former. So that's my starting point for this this type of glaze.

My challenge following Wang's path is moving from cone 10 to cone 6. I have no doubt I can do it. The conversion down to cone 6 is just one more step in that journey. My first step will be pulling the ancient Chinese recipes from Wood's book, converting them to cone 6. I will post the converted recipes before I test them.

Santa was good to me

2010-12-31T10:28:00.000-08:00

I asked for a cheap hand held blender for Christmas and Santa delivered.

I read about using a hand held mixer for glazes online somewhere (John Britt?) and I thought it might work. Well today I used my new mixer for the first time. Hot damn Skippy it rocks.

Normally when I mix a batch of a test glaze I mix 300 grams in a small tupperware container. I run the glaze through an 80 mess sieve twice to mix it. It's a slow and messy process.

Today I stuck my new mixer into the text glaze turned it on and 30 seconds later the glaze was perfectly mixed with no mess at all. What would have taken me 20 minutes before took me less than a minute. And it was much cleaner.

If you mix glazes buy a hand held mixer. You will be happy.

Thank you Santa!

Another new glaze recipe

2010-12-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

I have been gazing at work by Brother Thomas and Chun Wen Wang lately. Iron glazes can be so wonderful. They can be almost any color, clear, matte, crystalline. Just an amazing mineral.

So I started to think about iron yellows. Brother Thomas' influence. I haven't been able to find any good examples of an iron yellow for cone 6 oxidation online. I was scratching my head. I was surfing and googling and generally flailing blindly. As it happens sometimes the answer was right in front of me. Literally. Right in front of me was a platter I made last year, lorio ash, cone 6 oxidation and a beautiful yellow. The colorant? Iron. I just needed to tweak the recipe from being an ash glaze to being a normal stable glaze.

The original:

Alberta Slip 43.9
EPK 5.9
Whiting 29.6
Wood Ash 13.9
Grestely Borate 8
RIO 3
TiO2 6

The tweaked glaze:

Alberta Slip 53.9
EPK 5.9
Whiting 15
Grestely Borate 10.2
Silica 15
Red Iron Oxide 3
Titanium Dioxide 6

I will be testing this soon.

A new glaze to test

2010-12-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

I am getting antsy to see the glaze tests I dd last week. I have to wait until next week to see them.
In the mean time I was looking for another black temmoku. I came across this recipe that is from Nigel Woods' great book:

Silica 20.5
Wollastonite 18.5
Custer 19
EPK 14.7
Ball Clay 14.7
Iron oxide 9
Mang dioxide 3.2
Cobalt carb 0.5

This is a cone 10 glaze. So I tweaked it:

Silica 23
Wollastonite 21
Neph Syn 22
EPK 17
Grestely Borate 17
Iron oxide 9
Mang carb 3.2
Cobalt carb 0.5

I changed the manganese dioxide to carbonate as 3.2 percent of manganese dioxide makes me nervous. I added borate to help drop the melting point and removed some clay for the same reason. Also swapped the feldspar from custer to neph syn. then normalized the recipe to 100 without colorants.

I also have been reading a lot about Brother Thomas. His work is truly inspiring. I saw some of his pots have manganese over temmoku. I am going to mix up some mang. washes with grestely borate.

Tests done

2010-12-18T13:40:00.000-08:00

So I spent some time getting my tests ready.

I have a line test of bailey's red (cone 6). Line testing from 5%-14% RIO.

I am also testing a new clear. No line test just a single tile. If it melts and doesn't craze it's a winner.

A test tile of my cone 6 Obsidian #3. This is derived from a Richard Aerni recipe:

Alberta Slip 75
F3134 25
Cobalt Carb 5

Next is a new black temmoku.

Nepheline Syenite 14.4
EPK 19.9
Dolomite 18.3
Whiting 7.5
Silica 39.9
Lithium Carbonate 2
Red Iron Oxide 9

On top of these tests I made test tiles of some of my normal glazes - lorio ash, nuka, and a chrome/tin pink.

I'll post pictures when I get them - probably after Jan 1.

Oh and I was pretty bummed about my last glaze batch. Everything was over fired. I think one of the kilns at the new studio is over firing. The bisqued test tiles were also over fired. I had to toss out about 10 of them as they wouldn't take any glaze - they had partially vitrified. So I am not starting over with my normal cone 6 glazes. I am talking to the powers that be at the new studio about fixing the kiln instead.

Great glaze resource

2010-12-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

I ran across this site today:

http://www.glazesimulator.com/

Super awesomesauce.

Have fun!

Pop quiz time

2010-12-13T19:53:00.000-08:00

Well test time at least.

The glazes I used at my last studio didn't transfer well to my latest studio, so it's time to test. I decided to do it right. I made up about three dozen test tiles and I am starting with a blank sheet of paper and what colors I want. The first thing I want is a good black temmoku. I don't want Val's Temmoku Gold. I don't want the crystals, I want a smooth, glossy pitch black temmoku.

So I pulled out all my books (I have a bunch of glaze books) and started reading - why are most cone 6 temmokus full of crystals? How can I get a beautiful fat black tenmmoku at cone 6? I had tried before but failed. I found the answer this time. One little paragraph tucked away in Michael Bailey's "Oriental Glazes". The crystals form when the glaze is low in alumina (duh, like all those glazes that have intentional crystals). So the key is to flux down a cone 10 temmoku while keeping the clay content level with the cone 10 formula AND not overloading the glaze with calcium. So my flux options are adding grestely borate, possibly lithium, replacing the feldspar with neph syn, maybe even adding a couple parts barium carb.

On top of that I have a couple of line tests lined up - trying to figure out what the hell happened to my iron red and what recipe will work in these kilns.

I'll post the actual recipe for the temmoku once I get one that I like.

Time to work on that glaze palette again

2010-11-28T13:02:00.000-08:00

So with a new studio and the old cone 6 glazes not really working it's time to decide what glazes I want/need and get to work.

First I want some good ash glazes. I will be working to get a version of lorio ash that works in the new kilns. I am also going to try to get some color into the ash glazes. I will be doing line tests to see if I can get a purple ash using manganese carb.

I have a clear but it's not quite right. I will look to reduce the melting point a bit.

I will be doing line tests for an iron red. This one should have been a gimme but for some reason isn't looking right.

I will be looking for a black temmuko.

I will be creating a faux celedon.

I will try my chrome red to see if it works in the new kilns.

As I do the line tests I will post recipes.

Glazes don't travel

2010-11-25T10:00:00.001-08:00

The pottery truism reinforced itself this past week - glazes don't travel. I think this usually refers to the fact that different suppliers will have slightly different chemicals. RIO from one supplier may be less or more pure than RIO from another supplier. But what I have found is every kiln in the entire world is different. And glazes react differently in every kiln. Glazes that work perfectly in one kiln may not work in a similar kiln.

I got my first batch of pottery glaze fired at the new studio. It was ugly. I had used all glazes I had previously used, tuned, tweaked for cone 6 oxidation firing in an electric kiln. The new studio uses cone 6 oxidation firing in an electric kiln so I figured I was money. Not so much.

My lorio ash? Seriously over fired. All webbing and definition was gone. Just an ugly tan mess. A lot of crystals.

My seiji nuka? Same - over fired. Ran and pooled into dark brown nastiness. No lovely green.

The Bailey's red that is one of my favorites? Came out almost black. No idea what happened with this glaze. The others were obviously too fluxed for the kiln and require some tweaks to bring them into line with the new kilns. This totally different color perplexes me.

The only glaze that worked was a floating blue. Probably my least favorite glaze. I only use when someone asks specifically for it (in this case my wife asked for a large bowl with "that blue"). It melted correctly, looks perfect.

So my next project is extruding several dozen test tiles and going to work refining my standard recipes to work in these new kins. They fire a hotter cone 6 and appear to take longer to cool off than the kilns I have worked with in the past. Seems like I should be able to make use of those traits... I will dust off some crystalline glaze recipes.

The very good news out of this batch was all my tumblers I was going to put decals on came out. I will be doing my first batch of decals over the weekend. Should get them fired in the next couple of weeks.

Now the anticipation

2010-11-15T21:00:00.000-08:00

So I threw some nice pots - or what I consider nice pots - and mixed up several cone 6 oxidation glazes I have used in the past. I am now waiting to see how the recipes that I had used in other kilns react in the new studio's kilns.

I am going to old standards, lorio ash, nuka, Bailey's red, blue hare. I also tred a new glaze, a copper red that I am using for a faux celedon. I am hopeful.

I have three large bowls, a platter,and 8 tumblers. The tumblers are all glazed clear.They are going to be a Christmas gift for one of my sons. After the glaze firing I will be using decals to personalize the mugs. I am excited to try this new technique.

Now to resume my quest for a full palette of cone 6 oxidation glazes. Still looking for the rich beautiful tenmoku.

The joy of porcelain

2010-11-06T21:26:00.000-07:00

There is nothing quite like the moment when about 10 pounds of porcelain becomes centered.

Glaze db down. For good.

2010-10-25T11:59:00.001-07:00

I took the glaze db offline.

Just didn't have the time nor drive to fix the UI bugs or update it.

If you're interested email me or leave a comment and I will send you a SQL dump so you can set it up on your own machine.

Another new studio

2010-10-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I moved studio's again.

The one I landed at is probably not going to last long. Just long enough for me to find something better.

I love Pottery Northwest. But it's expensive. Ten weeks costs about $350. I found somewhere that's less than half the price, $145 for 10 weeks. The new studio is in the local community college. It means I am moving back to cone 6 electric. Which is pretty cool because hey - I have a bunch of tried and true cone 6 oxy glazes. Also this studio does a lot of decal work so I am hoping to lean how to do that.

I am off to spend my Saturday throwing stuff for Christmas. I think I am going to go with platters this year.

I am going to keep looking for a private studio where I can come and go as I please, experiment with glazes and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

A tipping point

2010-08-14T06:16:00.001-07:00

I posted previously that the pots I have been making lately are sub-standard as I have been folding in new techniques. Well last night was a bit of a watershed for me.

Last night I put the finishing touches on 3 tea pots. Any tea pot is an accomplishment for me – or any potter really. Tea pots, in my opinion, are the pinnacle of our craft. I incorporated several new tricks and techniques and created 3 tea pots I am mostly happy with. One is the best pot I have made to date.

All three were thrown as closed forms. All three have thrown spouts. All three have lids cut from the original closed form. All three have attached then pulled handles. Handles are still the bane of my existence. One handle came out exactly as I envisioned. One came out Ok. One is meh.

In addition to the tea pots I threw 3 large platters. I used techniques I picked up at PNW. The platters are also the best platters I’ve thrown. Large, good thinkness, lines I like.

This post isn’t to brag but to reflect on how much my time at PNW has helped me improve my pottery skills. I am eagerly awaiting the Fall schedule to see what part of my game I can work on.

Now I just have to hope that I don’t trash the sweet new pots when I glaze them ;)

Steady progress

2010-07-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

While I have been avoiding my obsession with glazes I have been throwing myself into the current class. I am concentrating on improving my pots - not just my glazes. I am having a ton of fun. I am making a lot of pots but most of them suck. They suck because I am doing things I am not comfortable doing. I am doing things I am not good at. It's kind of odd. I am having more fun making really terrible pots.

I am learning to cut darts out to turn pots oval.

I am pulling pouring lips on pots.

I was challenged to "make a cute pot". Ever try to make a cute pot?

I am making tea pots from closed forms.

I am making spouts from slabs.

These are all new for me. The pots I am making show my inexperience with the techniques. So no cool new pots to post. Not even kinda good new pots to post. But hey, I am happy and making progress.

Wheels turning again

2010-07-08T16:19:00.000-07:00

Back in the studio.

I realized I am spending a lot less time in the studio recently. There are reasons which don't need to be discussed here but I am making an effort to keep my butt in the studio.

I am enjoying the new class. Learning a lot. Using techniques that I am not comfortable with. Making pots I have never made. Very challenging and rewarding.

A lot of greenware drying. I will post pics once things start to fire.

I am still trying to obsess less about glazes. I am doing one experiment using Richard Aerni's slips and glazes. Again, will post details as things fire.

A few new jars

2010-06-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

Pics of a couple new jars...

Very quiet

2010-06-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

Not a lot going on currently. I am between classes.

I am still trying to be a little less obsessive about glazes. I have a carbon trap shino that works, a kaki that rocks, an ash that while I don't really care for works. I will use those as the base set of glazes for the next few months.

The class I start next week is pouring vessels. I am looking forward to this class. I learned a lot from Deborah Schwartzkopf last course and she is teaching this class as well. I can do tea pots but for some reason can't do pitchers. Plus I'd like to get better at teapots. I have a few tea pot shapes swirling in my gourd.

I'll post more as the class fires up.

A moment of satisfaction

2010-05-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

Pottery often frustrates me. I often spend time working on items that break or look funky when glazed or whatever. Pottery frustrates me.

But sometimes I get the little reward that makes all the crap worth while. I had one such moment this week. I went to the studio and grabbed a large bowl that I had glazed. The top half was kaki, the bottom half, both inside and out is a carbon trap shino. It came out beautiful. The kaki is red-ish purple. Really very red. Not brown, not coppery, red. A red iron red. The carbon trap shino came out looking like it was pulled out of a Malcom Davis slide. A deep tan with blooms of black.

I love this bowl. I haven't decided if I should sell it, keep it or gift it. I would post pictures but I still only have my phone camera and those pictures would not do justice to this little beauty.

But as with everything pottery there was frustrations that evening too. I had three - FREAKIN THREE!!! - mugs broken (out of my original 20) just moving them to a different shelf. THREE. Then someone broke one on the shelf waiting for bisque. But kindly left all the pieces in a neat pile. Then I had 4 more had their handles pop off. The handle issue is something I have struggled with for years. I think I am down to about10 mugs. And I haven't glazed yet.

Keeping it simple

2010-05-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in my living room last night. I had had a few drinks. Sometimes you can get an epiphany when you're relaxed and not really thinking.

I stared over at my kitchen counter. On the counter were all the test tiles from my last batch of glaze tests. I had an epiphany. I am trying too hard with the glazes. No other potter I personally know spends half - and I mean literally half - as much time as I do screwing with glazes. I am being OCD about it.

I had spent some time prior to the gin and tonics mapping out how I was going to glaze a large serving bowl I have bisqued. How many pots have I ruined with complicated glazing? Many dozens. Maybe a few hundred. What was I doing? I was over complicating something that shouldn't be complicated. Less IS more. Keep it simple.

I threw out my glaze diagram for the bowl. I am going to hit it just straight kaki. Maybe a few touches of a highlight glaze. Nothing else. No strontium matte under glaze. No ash over glaze. Nothing complicated. Just a beautiful glaze on a simple pot.

I have several glazes that work in the new studio; a kaki, two carbon trap shinos, a black. I will work with those. I do want a celadon. I am going to try the studio celadon rather than make my own. I don't have to make every glaze myself.

In line with backing off the glaze obsession and concentrating on other things I changed gears in my throwing. I mentioned in a prior post that I am taking a class on set design. I made 20 mugs (down to 18 now) in order to get a set of 6 I really like. As I was finishing my 15th or so mug the class instructor walked by and commented that the shape was simple and I should try to push myself. It kind of pissed me off. Yeah, the shape is simple, my reason for taking the class wasn't to challenge myself with exotic shapes but to become consistent with simple shapes. But she is right.

I gave myself a new challenge. Create a set of canisters out of diverse and challenging shapes. So I started throwing large completely closed vases. My challenge is to make the divergent difficult shapes into a cohesive set. That's a challenge. So far I have 4 vases thrown. I plan on throwing 5 more. The 3:1 rule. I want a set of 3 containers; flour, sugar; brown sugar, for my kitchen counter.

My real challenge will be keeping the glazes on these containers simple ;)

Win some, lose some...

2010-05-05T21:37:00.000-07:00

Line test of lorio ash.

The right tile is the straight up cone 10 recipe. Still running at "cone 6". I am giving up on this glaze in these kilns. I was firing a more highly fluxed version at cone 6 and it never ran.

Celedon and Kaki

The celedon didn't fully melt. The kaki made me drool. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Carbon trap shino

Both tiles are malcom davis shino. Left uses Barnard Slip instead of Red Art. Right uses Alberta Slip instead of Red Art. The one on the right is really stunning in person.

St. John's Black and Reitz Green

Both are kind of "meh". The green actually looks better in the picture than in person. It's too blue, not black enough for me.

glaze db up and running again

2010-05-02T17:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.glazejunkie.com

Up and running.

Not 100% finished but it's functional.

About2,000 glaze recipes.

Enjoy!

Progress

2010-05-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

I was at the studio today. I trimmed and put handles on 11 mugs. These go with the 8 I did the other day. I started out with the goal of making 6 mugs for a set. In order to get 6 I really liked I figured I would have to make 18 mugs. I started making 20. I dropped 1 so I am at 19. I figure I'll lose at least 1 more to some freak thing.

I am encouraged though. All 19 have the same basic form, the same lines, the same handles. The vary in size and I am still working on that. But I am pretty confident that once these are glazed and fired they will be easily recognizable as a set. And with 19 headed to the kiln I should be able to find 6 that I like - and that was the goal. A set of 6 mugs.

More of the same

2010-04-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

Was a busy week at work last week and didn't get a chance to hang out at the studio much. I did take some time over the weekend to mix some glazes to test. I decided to go to square one. I mixed a handful of glazes straight from John Britt's book. I'll see how they turn out and tweak as needed. I did do the line test of the lorio ash I mentioned in my last post. All those tiles should be fired this coming weekend.

One test I am looking forward to seeing is a tile with a carbon trap shino under lorio ash. I am trying for the stunning yellows that Nick Joerling gets with an ash glaze over a carbon trap shino.

I spent time hunched over a wheel throwing more coffee cups. I chose coffee cups because I could use more and it's a simple shape. I am working on becoming consistent in my throwing. It's really been a struggle for me. I keep thinking of the words I read somewhere "to master a shape you need to throw 50-100 of them". I don't know who said it but I think they were low balling the number. I've thrown a few dozen of this specific coffee cup shape before I started this little journey. I've thrown 20 since I started to try to master this shape and I still feel like the pots are wildly different. Out of the eight I have handles on I actually like three of them. Two of them I should have throw out. I will be putting handles on the rest this weekend.

Tweaking my favorite ash glaze

2010-04-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

I love lorio ash. It's got a beautiful color. Behaves like a great ash glaze and I modified it down to cone 6 and that version webs beautifully and never runs past where I applied it. However when I tried my version of lorio ash at PNW it ran like it was training for the Olympics. It reinforces the saying that "glazes don't travel". Truer words never spoken. Every kiln is unique. Every kiln fires differently. Heck, at the last studio I was at they had three kilns - some glazes fired differently in those three kilns sitting in the same room. It's no surprise that a version of a glaze I had refined to fire in the kilns at one studio totally bombs out in a different kiln. So that sends me back to the drawing board.

Time to reformulate a version of lorio ash for the kilns I am using now. I am starting the same way I always start - with the original recipe. I have the base recipe and two data points, the kilns at PNW fire at cone 6 and the version I had of this gaze while tweaked for cone 6 is melting too much. So the recipe I am after is somewhere between the base recipe and the version I had been using. Knowing the boundaries I created a table:

	10 (base)	9	8	7	6 (my current version)
Alberta Slip	43.5	43.5	43.5	43.5	43.5
EPK	13.9	11.9	9.9	7.9	5.9
Whiting	29.6	29.6	29.6	29.6	29.6
Wood Ash	13.9	13.9	13.9	13.9	13.9
Grestely Borate	0	2	4	6	8
RIO	3	3	3	3	3
TiO2	6	6	6	6	6

As you can see I kept the moving parts down to a two; EPK and GB. I will be testing 4 of these soon. The fifth one I already tested, my current version and it ran.

While I was mixing up glazes I mixed up an oldie but goodie - Reitz Green. I freakin' loved this glaze in the past. But never brought it down to cone 6. I know the kilns at PNW are higher than the kilns I am used to so I am hoping I can get this glaze working. I also swirled up a quick batch of Pinnel Celadon. I haven't found a celadon I like yet.

Oh and before I forget - the new version of my glaze db web site is almost complete. Just finishing up the UI now. Putting in things like pagination and print pages.

Trying to improve

2010-04-14T22:09:00.001-07:00

I am taking a class. I am in a class called "Set Design". It's being taught by Deborah Schwartzkopf.

I choose this class because it gives me a chance to work on something that has eluded me - the ability to throw consistent shapes/sizes. I can throw really nice one or two off pieces, at least I think they're nice. But I can't sit down and throw 10 bowls same size same shape. I can throw an 18 inch tall bottle, but not 6 coffee cups that look alike. It bothers me.

I made myself sit down and throw 10 cups tonight. Sounds easy but it's the first time I've done that since I started throwing again. On cup number 5 I got the shape I really wanted. I threw several more that were actually very similar in size and shape. Then I got tired and the last few sucked.

I plan on getting 30 cups I like. I have maybe 3.

I am going to put my normal handles on them.

I am also adding a sugar container and a creamer. I'll be using the same bodies as the mugs for these. Just a different finishing treatment.

It feels good working on improving my throwing instead of just working on glazes.

All will get the same glaze treatment. I have a high level view of what the glaze will be - lorio ash + some accent glaze on the outside, black on the inside. I am going to be doing line tests with the lorio ash to get a variation that doesn't run in the kilns at PNW.

On cruise control

2010-04-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some work in the studio but not a lot.

I made a fairly nice bowl. It's a little special because my parents were visiting when I was glazing it and my Mom helped me glaze. She had on my mask, I taught her to use the spray gun. It was fun. It turned out fair nice. I am giving her the bowl.

The glaze palette I was working on for the new studio is on hold. I will be staying at the new studio for a few more months but my wife and I decided to turn our out building into a studio. So I will have a studio of my own in my back yard. Pretty freakin cool.

it will take several months to get everything put together. And once again I will be in a bit of a limbo. Spending time and money putting together a new studio which means less time actually producing pottery.

On the plus side I get full control over the kiln and firing. I am going electric. I am not comfortable with a fuel kiln in my back yard. I am going to get the best computer controlled kiln I can afford. I am hoping for some precision firings in the cone 6 and cone 9 range. Cone 6 for most glazes but cone 9 for oil spots.

Very excited.

Pots outta da kiln

2010-03-16T20:37:00.001-07:00

I used a set of bowls, a vase, and a set of mugs to experiment with combinations of the new glazes. A few things I learned:

Shino must be put on thick or it blows.
Iron wash over shino blows.
The container didn't say clear, it said clear blue.
Shino over SCM blows.
I should write down my experiments because the one bowl that came out great - yeah I couldn't tell you what's on it if you waterboarded me.

Everything be hammered into pieces fit for my Mom's new garden pathway.

Time to start throwing more ;)

The last of the first batch of test results

2010-03-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

The last four tests from my first batch of tests came out of the kiln. I am not posting pictures because I am getting sick. But not too sick to toss out a few lines about the results.

I tested two oil spots. Both were mis-fires. Someone loaded them into the reduction kiln. Reduction means no oil spots. I'll have to re-test these.

The other two came out freakin' awesome.

One was a copper red. I made a mistake but this time it came out great. I forgot to mix it. It came out very deep purple with turquoise spots. Amazing looking. No idea if I can reproduce it.

The last one was a glaze called called Virden Wrinkle. I got it from John Britt's book. It came out better than the test tiles in the book. It got the wrinkling effect but instead of a flat dark gray the glaze came out a shiny metallic black. I will be using this a lot.

I will post recipes and pictures later.

Off to change into PJs and take some Nyqil.

Glaze database update

2010-02-27T16:01:00.000-08:00

Warning - only tangentially related to pottery. Proceed at your own risk.

The glaze database project is a great example of why I rarely code.

I have the back end completely rewritten and working. No big thing. However this week I started looking at Google Web Tools. Using GWT is like being given the keys to a freakin' spaceship. Armed with photon torpedoes. And lasers. It's so much more powerful than any other tool suite I've ever seen.

GWT is a java SDK. They - Google - provide the SDK as well as a plugin for Eclipse, a very powerful open source java IDE. So far using their code and tools I have stepped through the first of their tutorials. I have learned enough to know I will be using GWT for the foreseeable future for any and all web development.

For those who may have gotten this far and know a thing or two about development; GWT is compiled java that renders dynamic html and javascript. So you can use a java debugger for your ajax apps. Breakpoints, not alert windows. Compiled code, all the ajax pre-written by Google. Truly a thing of beauty. I wrote a fairly complex ajax app in about 200 lines of java. Not a single line of html or javascript. And it was fast as hell. Time to learn java.

And here's the rub. I am going to trash my current working version of my web app for glazes. Again. So I can rewrite it from scratch. Again. My issue with coding, my coding problem. I often reach the point where I must rewrite my code prior to finishing it which results in the time it takes for me to publish code being many times longer than it would take a normal person.

Funny though, I am similar with pottery. My favorite pot is the one I am about to throw. My least favorite pot? The one I just threw. My favorite glaze? The one I am still formulating, not the one I just applied to a pot.

C'est la vie.

The rest of the results

2010-02-25T19:15:00.001-08:00

The celedons all sucked. Not bothering with recipes. I will talk to Wally, I am not sure if this is a result of over reducing, under reducing, over firing or what. All the celedons came out cloudy and opaque.

This is the house iron red. Dead sexy. I would marry this glaze. As always my phone camera pic does not do justice to this beauty.

My lorio ash glaze. It ran which it has never done before and it developed wonderful crystals that even if I had a good camera would have problems capturing. Even better looking in reduction. But I will have to refactor it for the hotter kiln to prevent the running.

More test results - copper reds

2010-02-25T19:05:00.001-08:00

Two of the three copper reds I was testing were fired. The third didn't make it into the kiln =(

Panama Red (John Britt)

Dolomite 7.8%

Grestly Borate 10.7%

Strontium Carb 4.2%

Whiting 2.6%

Zinc Oxide 2.6%

Custer 44.1%

3110 9.7%

EPK 2.6%

Silica 15.8%

Comments: Very purple. Not clear, very opaque. I will work on this one.

Blue/Green Copper red (Ceramics Monthly)

Talc 3.3%

Whiting 14.29%

3134 13.33%

F4 feldspar 46.16%

EPK 6.4%

Silica 16.52%

Comments: Redder than the other test but still opaque and purple. I will work on this one as well.

First test tiles in reduction!

2010-02-25T18:43:00.000-08:00

Finally!!

Let's start with the shinos:

Cherry blossom shino (John Britt)

Soda ash 10%

Nepheline Syenite 40%

Spodumene 40%

EPK 10%

Comments: No color but you can see the wax resist really well. Still fairly attractive glaze. I may try this on an iron bearing clay to see if there is some color.

Malcolm Davis shino

Soda ash 16%

F4 feldspar 9%

Nepheline Syenite 39%

Redart (I used alberta slip) 6%

EPK 17%

OM4 13%

Comments: The photo was taken with my phone and doesn't do justice to this beauty. The wax resist strip is a fantastic iron red. Really stunning glaze.

House shino

No recipe. This is the house shino for the studio. No clue what the recipe is.

Comments: Nice peach color. Wonderful texture. I will be using this glaze.

Slooooow firing

2010-02-23T20:58:00.000-08:00

I got to the studio tonight anxious to see the test tiles I had firing. I have 3 copper reds, 3 shinos, 2 celedons, and 1 ash. I saw the tiles go into the kiln Saturday afternoon.

So I get there tonight damn near run through the studio to the kilns and the kiln is still red hot. It was dark out and I could still see the glow. Shit.

So I will go back Wednesday and hopefully things will be cool by then.

After I took my frustration out on 25 pounds of porcelain. Split it in two and threw a big ass vase then a big ass bowl. They both came out nice. Now if I can just get some glazes FREAKIN' tested I can glaze them.

Testing ramping up

2010-02-20T06:28:00.000-08:00

I have a batch of test tiles waiting to be glaze fired. They may be done today, I'll see when I get to the studio later today. Testing a copper red, lorio ash, and all the house glazes, as well as a pair of carbon trap shinos.

I also had quite a bit of interest in exploring a cone 6/7 oil spot. I had previously chatted via email with John Britt about oil spots fired at temps lower than cone 10 and he said it's indeed possible. So I am working on seeing what actually works.

I started mixing test batches last night and will mix up 4 or 5 more this morning before hitting the studio.

So far I am using the oil spot recipes in John's book as a starting place. In all the tests I am simply adding 5-7% F3110. That will be my first test; does it melt at cone 6 with the addition of the frit? I will make adjustments based on results.

I am fairly excited as I have worked with candace black before and it's a beautiful glaze. John sent me his cone 6 version of that glaze. I will be test firing it soon. Plus I am trying my hand at a couple of oil spots that produce red sot; bailey's oil spot and SG-12.

I will post pictures and recipes as soon as stuff gets fired.

New glaze lab

2010-02-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

This morning I set up my garage as a glaze lab. It was stupid easy but a fun and needed first step.

I have had all the chemicals as I have been making my own glazes for several years but I have never done it at home. I have a work bench in my garage and I just organized everything on the work bench. No big thing.

But something about it got me excited. Maybe it was the ease of having my entire ceramics reference library a few feet away. I went inside and grabbed my copy of “The Complete Guide To High Fire Glazes” and put it with my Ohaus scale. I didn’t need the book… but it was cool to have it so accessible. I am so used to not having any of my notes or books when I am mixing glazes.

I mixed up four glaze tests. I should have some bisqued test tiles that I can use tonight. In theory I should have fired tests by the weekend. I am testing two cone 6 shinos, a cone 6 copper red, and my modified lorio ash glaze. That’s not too experimental but I need to see how it will react in the new kilns and I have only fired it in oxidation, so let’s see how it reacts in reduction. I’ll post recipes if any of them are worth keeping. The lorio ash has been posted a couple of times.

I am hopeful on all the test recipes. All but the lorio ash came from John Britt. And he is The Man when it comes to glazes. While I am sure the glazes will need to be tweaked I am hopeful that all will be good starting points. I am super excited about the copper red. The pictures of the test tiles I have seen are nothing short of jaw dropping.

I will also make tests of all the house glazes at the studio. I need to see how they look on the clay I am using. I will be mixing up 1k gram batches of my old stand by glazes; SCM, Obsidian 3, lorio ash, crystal base w/ cobalt, seiji nuka. I am hoping to get use of the house iron red, temmoku, and tea dust glazes.

Slightly off topic but holy crap it rocks having a house big enough to set up a wood shop in my shed, an office for books in one of the empty bedrooms and still have plenty of room to dedicate my garage to making glazes. Oh and the car still fits in the garage.

Sweet and meh at the same time

2010-02-07T20:34:00.000-08:00

I was opening a new box of B-mix at the studio and I noticed the box was labelled B-mix 5.

I scurried up to one of the resident artist and confirmed the B-mix is really a cone 6 clay. And the follow up question "Does this mean the gas kilns fire at 6, not 10?" "yes" was the answer.

So I will not graduate to cone 10 reduction glazes. However I have a ton of great cone 6 glazes so I am not starting from scratch. I will be able to add some true reduction glazes to my palette.

I extruded about 20 pounds of test tiles. I will start testing the house glazes soon.

Things keep moving... slowly

2010-02-03T06:07:00.000-08:00

Ah the holidays are over, visits out of state to family are over and I am back in the studio. And back to working on version 2.0 of the glaze data base.

While I love the new studio I find myself spending less time there than I did at the last studio. I am just not in the swing of it yet. But I am still working. I threw a set of 6 mugs last night and will be making test tiles to test the house glazes and my first batch of new cone 10 reduction glazes this week.

I still have to figure out what glazes I will try. I was excited for oil spot glazes but I think I will wait on those and concentrate on reduction only glazes.

There has been more movement on the glaze db front.

Version 2.0 is shaping up very nicely. I have the API working but not finished quite yet. I haven't even started the UI but I hired a graphic artist to design the UI. The designer is my daughter. She's going to college in the Fall for art and design. I figure she can add my site to her portfolio and she;ll do a better job than my designing it. Version 1.0 of the site, while functional was pretty damn ugly. I am excited about publishing the new version. The API is completely rewritten and more stable.

News on all fronts

2010-01-20T06:23:00.000-08:00

I've started at the new studio. It's wonderful, strange, inspiring, intimidating.

There are a dozen or so working professional ceramic artists at this studio. Working in the same studio is intimidating. Also enlightening. I have already picked up tips that have dramatically improved my throwing. It's fun. Definitely moving into new territory for me.

Some of the things I had to figure out was how I was going to fire, clay I was going to use at the new studio. There are basically two choices for me as far as clay; a house made iron bearing red stoneware or Laguna B-mix. Yeah, I went with the B-mix. It's the first time I have worked with this clay. It' throws like a dream. I have already thrown very large (for me) bowls that are thinner than anything of that size I have throw before. Last night I threw a bowl with about 12lbs of clay. It's about 1/4 inch thick. Maybe less. The walls are high, maybe too high for a bowl.

I still have to start work on a glaze palette for the new clay. There is a nice selection of house glazes but no test tiles showing the house glazes on B-mix. So a lot of work to do there.

It was kind of funny to tour their glaze area and realize I have a better selection of chemicals.

News on the glaze db front. I have started work on that project again. It ill take awhile - as always - but I will get it back up and running and improve it. Promise.

Off for a long weekend on the East Coast. My father in law's birthday.

Hitting the reset button

2010-01-09T18:21:00.000-08:00

So next week I start at my new studio. It will be bittersweet. I loved my old studio and will miss them terribly. I am excited about the expanded horizons the new studio presents.

The new studio will be a complete reset. First I will have to decide if I will be working in high fire (cone 10) or mid-fire (cone 6). Once I make that call then I have to start from the ground up, literally. Which clay will I be using? Will I move to stoneware? Stay with porcelain? I will most like develop an entirely new glaze palette as a result of the studio move. I will be starting with my tools, and all my chemicals. Nothing else. No glazes, no clays.

I am excited by the unknown here. I know I will be doing/working with new processes techniques. I will probably try my hand at soda firing. I may move to high fire. Shinos and copper reds call to me. The new studio also has a really kick ass raku set up. I may do some more raku.

Exciting times.

Christmas gifts

2009-12-18T18:11:00.000-08:00

I unloaded the last kiln load I will fire at my soon to be ex-studio. Bitter sweet. I loved the time I had there but I am happy to be moving to PNW.

Here are some of the pots from the last load, matched sets for Christmas gifts. Remember the salt and pepper shakers I posted how to make? Yeah, I paired those up with similarly glazes main pieces, a large bowl and a large plate.

A chrome / tin pink with a blue highlight glaze. Cone 6 electric. Porcelain.

Lorio ash (modified) with Seiji nuka (modified). Cone 6 electric. Porcelain.

A new pottery home

2009-12-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

Well, after my very frustrating time with one studio I had a very pleasant time with another.

I will be leaving the studio I currently belong to and moving to Pottery Northwest. I met with Wally, the director, and he was awesome as ever. I have taken a class from him and while we may not be drinking buddies we're certainly on friendly terms. I explained what I was looking for - a place to get my hands dirty without predefined limits. He eagerly listened and laid out how I could accomplish my goals at Pottery Northwest.

The next month I will be transitioning out of my existing studio, finishing all my pieces, moving my glaze chemicals, tools. I begin at PNW in Jan. I am soooo looking forward to it.

PNW is a great place, take a look. Many electric kilns, several gas kilns, three if I recall correctly. One is a soda kiln. I've never fired soda before. Frankly never had a desire to but at least it's an option. They have a great glaze set up. Some fairly cool in house glazes. A great low fire tea dust. They have a spray booth. I would be lost without my spray gun. They do a lot of raku and have a nice raku set up.

Wally is great to work with. He allows and encourages experimentation. We had a number of interesting conversations about glaze development in the past. Really he's a great guy.

I'm very happy with how things turned out. I know it sounds dopey and cliche but everything happens for a reason. The studio that treated me like I was some kind of bum to be shooed away is a distant second to PNW when it comes to Seattle area studios. I am very happy this is where I landed.

The down side is leaving the studio I have been at for three years. They rock. I have learned from them. And at the risk of sounding arrogant I know they have learned from me. I will miss them. We all got along great. We all worked together well. We had regular Friday night parties at the studio. For a time we did raku firings with a lot of wine (ok, maybe not the brightest idea but it was fun).

A punch in the face

2009-11-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

So I finally got to meet with the director of the studio near my new house where I was hoping to become a member. And like the title says it was a punch in the face.

I walked into the studio and was met by one of the resident artists. A real nice guy. We chatted for about 10 minutes waiting for the director to show up. The friendly guy mentioned they like to run the studio with 20 resident artists. I mentioned I am not really an artist but a hobbyist. The friendly guy said not to worry there were no professional artists at the studio. It is too small to accommodate real working potters. They're all hobbyists I was assured.

The director showed up and quickly escorted me to an office. He asked if I had brought samples of my work. The director and I had emailed back and forth and he never mentioned that I should bring any work. I told him no I hadn't brought any. He asked if I had brought pictures. No, he hadn't mentioned those either - he had said to come by for a visit. I told him I had some pictures posted on my blog - I guided him to this blog. He quickly scanned the blog and I mean scanned, he just scrolled through so fast I couldn't describe any pots before they were off screen and he certainly wasn't reading anything. He turned to me and announced I would be required to take several classes offered by the studio prior to being made a member. My work needed more work. And I guess this douchebag could tell by his nano second scan of my blog.

He then started to lecture me about not bringing a CD of my portfolio of work. The CD he never mentioned in his emails. I quickly stopped him and told him I am not a professional potter. I am a hobbyist. I am not creating a body of work. I am having fun. He grew even more condescending. Clearly I didn't understand what it took to work in a group environment - forget that I have been doing so for years and my current studio is doing things like cutting my dues to $0 in an attempt to keep me there - I would be expected to contribute to the studio. Something the director had in his literally less than 5 minute interview of me he had decided I was not capable of doing. He had decided I had nothing to contribute without having asked me a single question, other than if I had brought samples of my work or a CD. He needed to let me know my perceived deficiencies.

I gave the condescending prick an opportunity to atone for his rude treatment of me - "Any questions?" I asked. Nope, his lecture of me was enough to stoke his ego. No questions about about me at all. As I got up to leave he mentioned that they currently have 15 resident artists - 5 short of what the friendly guy said is their preferred run rate.

Your studio is not a gallery. You're not curating SAM, you're not making admissions decisions at an MFA program, you're running a pottery studio. Stop being so arrogant. Freeze out hobbyists at your own peril. In a down economy turning your back on those of us who can afford a fairly expensive hobby is one sure fire way to run short of money. Don't be rude and abusive to customers - and yes, I was a customer you moron. I was going to pay you money every month. Now I will find somewhere else to pay for my pottery fix. The loss is yours.

Before I got home I had an email from the director. His tone tells me he knows he fucked up. I have not been treated with such utter disdain and lack of respect by anyone in the arts since I got back into pottery. Not once. Not even remotely close to the level of naked contempt this guy had for me. How dare a hobbyist think he can share studio space with the likes of you.

Oh, and your iron reds and copper reds suck. But hey what do I know? ;)

Step by step salt and pepper shakers

2009-11-28T16:07:00.000-08:00

So I saw these little beauties on someone else's blog. I wish I recall where I saw them so I could give proper attribution. These aren't my idea. I just don't recall where I read about them.

I don't give a lot of space to pottery except for glazing. So I thought I would take this opportunity and concentrate on throwing technique.

Step one: Center a small ball of clay, then open all the way to the bat face.

Step two: Using one finger form the start of the inside wall.

Step three: Carefully pull up the inner wall and form it into a cone. Be sure to leave a small opening. I use the blunt end of my needle tool as a guide.

Step four: Start pulling up the outer wall.

Step five: Pull up the outer wall.

Step six: Collar off the top.

Step seven: Clean up the form with a wooden rib.

Stepeight: Using a wire cut the shaker off the bat. I hand trim these.

Step nine: I use tooth picks to make hole for shaking out the spices.

The most important step... glaze!!!

Latest results

2009-11-26T10:58:00.001-08:00

My favorite from the latest batch.

SCM / Obsidian 3 (modified)

I used a smallish spray gun to apply three swathes of SCM followed by an overcoat of obsidian. There are nice little gold tea dust crystals in the glaze. I like this platter.

This mug has a palette I have been using for awhile.

SCM / lorio ash (modified) / seiji nuka (modified) / bailey's red

This mug has the new combination I was trying;

SCM / Lorio ash (modified) / Seiji Nuka (modified) / Cornell Iron Saturate

I love the colors but the application was wonky and parts came out very stony and rough. I will try this again but with a thicker coat and/or a coat of clear over it.

So this is what happens when you lean your bat over to check out the profile of a pot you just got done throwing. Oops.

Possible changes on the way

2009-11-24T16:53:00.000-08:00

So as I have mentioned I moved from Everett to Seattle. With it comes a re-evaluation of my studio situation. I visited a potential new studio this afternoon.

A big beautiful and busy studio. There were half a dozen people there on a Tuesday afternoon. Still a lot of space to work.

There was a nice glaze room with a full assortment of chemicals. A great board showing all the house glazes over a variety of clay bodies. Lots of nice traditional glazes. No evidence of a spray booth or equipment though.

I went into the two kiln rooms. One had maybe 6 electric kilns. All digital. Then I went into the gas kiln room. The large gas kiln was firing. The thing is a monster. It's taller than me by a few feet (I am 5'10") and it's square. So this is a HUGE kiln. The four burners are about 6 inches in diameter. The other kiln was a little bit smaller but not by much.

I really hope I get accepted to this studio. It looks like a great place to take my game to the next level. I saw the electric kilns with the digital controllers and immediately thought oil spots. The gas kilns had me drooling because I have never gotten to fire in reduction. Shinos, copper reds, celedons, oh my.

I am hoping to know next week if I get in. In the mean time I have a week off from work. I will be spending a lot of time in the current studio - which still rocks because of the uber cool peeps there - this week. I am planning on spending 8 - 10 hours there tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some decent pics to post.

A pleasant surprise

2009-11-21T17:41:00.000-08:00

I finally got back to the studio today. I got spend about 3 hours there. I spent most of it glazing some bisque ware that had stacked up. Among the pots I glazed today were 5 mugs. I tried to make some mugs with handles made in a style that I love but have had problems with the handles.

I started with eight mugs but dropped one while trimming. Down to seven. While drying two of the mugs had the handles pull off the mug. Down to five. They got bisque fired. All made it through the bisque firing.

I glazed two with clear inside the mug, strontium crystal magic (modified), lorio ash (modified), cornell iron saturate, and seiji nuka (modified). I am not real sure how these will come out as I haven't used the cornell iron saturate outside two test tiles that I didn't really like. I did the other three with the same layers of glazes except I used bailey's red instead of the cornell iron saturate. I have used that combination with success several times. I also used the clear/SCM/lorio ash/bailey's/nuka on a large bowl.

I glazed two platters. One platter was really nice, one sucked. Both got SCM with Obsidian 3 (modified) over the top. I have high hopes for these. Well, for the one that doesn't suck. I have used this combination many times and it's probably my favorite. It gives a wonderful deep floating blue type glaze... but deeper blue than a normal floating blue.

Lastly I tried a new combination on a vase. I put a fairly thick layer of modified lori ash, this batch had 3% copper carbonate added. It yields a deep forrest green ash. Under the ash is a layer of SCM. The bottom half of the vase has a layer of obsidian. I am pretty eager to see how this combination works.

Whew, move complete

2009-11-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well, it took a couple weeks but the move is complete. That means I will be back in the studio. It looks like I will be spending Saturday finishing up a set of 7 (was 8 until an unfortunate trimming accident) coffee mugs.

I can't wait. My head is full of ideas. I need to get my hands muddy again.

Still away from the studio but not away from ceramics

2009-10-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of moving. I have zero time to go to the studio. But that didn't stop me from shopping for an old HP laser printer to use for decals. I found one on Craig's list and should pick it up this weekend.

It will still be two weeks or so before things calm down enough for me to get back to the studio. I am already excited to get my hands muddy again.

An interruption

2009-10-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

Again, I try to keep the non-pottery stuff off this blog however some times other things leak into my pottery. This is one such time.

I mentioned in a prior post that my wife and I recently bought a house. Well our closing date is rapidly approaching. As a result I am spending all my time packing and cleaning. I haven't been to the studio in almost two weeks. And it's going to get busier. After the sale closes we have to replace the fridge, build a fence to keep our filthy dogs at bay, and paint several rooms before we move in.

I probably will be out of the studio for a month. It's the longest I have been out of the studio since I started. My head is swirling with ideas but no time to execute any of them. And I know myself well enough to know that by the time I get into the studio a lot of those ideas will be gone.

One of those little things; I was looking at an old mug I made. The mug has an octopus on the side. The mug is floating blue but I put a tin/chrome red on the octopus. While I was washing it I noticed I had the two glazes overlapping on the bottom of the octopus. I had never noticed this before. It looked good. I may try this combo on some pots.

KISS

2009-10-12T15:39:00.000-07:00

Yeah, sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

I forget that less is more. At least in my view. Especially when it comes to pottery. Keep it simple stupid.

I tested a cone 6 crystal glaze that used mason stain as a colorant. It came out pretty cool. So I mixed up a batch with orange stain. Put it on a pot with my tin/chrome red. With some strontium crystal magic. And some highlights of a crystal glaze with cobalt.

All the colors came out as I expected. Unfortunately I failed to realized before firing what an abomination those would be together. The pot looks like a teen age girl who doesn't know how to put on make up but wants to put a lot on. It's garish and ugly.

I am going to put it in our "free" pottery garden. Some fool will take. I will concentrate on limiting myself to two or three glazes per pot.

Three new pictures

2009-10-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

Three new pictures.

Oh and I tested a new turquoise. Came out Ok but not too stunning. I am going to keep tweaking it.

Oh my

2009-10-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

The woman who owns the studio I go to was asked to provide some work for a charity auction. She in turn asked all of the studio members for a couple pieces of work. I gave her two bowls. They were nothing special. In fact I really don't remember what they looked like.

Last night she told me that one of my bowls sold for $120.

I was shocked. I have sold a lot below $50 a piece, but nothing over $50. Now granted it was for charity which inflates the price so I am taking this with a grain of salt.

I also take heart from the fact many of my studio mates have begun using my glazes regularly. So I feel like the glaze aspect of my work is starting to mature a bit.

A lightbulb moment

2009-10-02T06:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have my best ideas in the shower. No idea why. I had an idea this morning. A simple one but one that has me excited.

I find my most satisfaction from the interaction of glazes. Nothing is better for me than seeing two or more glazes melt together to become something greater than either glaze alone. Mixing or layering glazes is fairly easy with a spray gun - which I have. And I have found some glaze combinations I really like. But something was missing, I wasn't sure what.

In the shower this morning I was thinking of the work of Fetish Ghost. I really love his stuff and will be buying some to add to my collection. He does not layer glazes, he uses paper stencils and brushes on slips. Then as the hot water poured over my head I realized that I can use Fetish Ghost's paper stencil technique to enhance the glaze layering I do.

Now granted this isn't ground breaking. I am sure many many potters already do this. But I had never done it and never thought to do it. I expect adding this technique will be a nice new tool for me. I will be designing and making some stencils over the next few days. I have about a dozen pots waiting for a bisque fire and will be using stencils on several to test this out with my glazes.

Line test of SCM with yellow iron oxide

2009-09-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

The results of a line test of strontium crystal magic with yellow iron oxide 3-12%. The results were meh. Shades of brown and tan. I get much better results with an iron red over SCM. Though I think I will mix a batch of this with 5% YIO and use it under an iron red.

New lorio ash recipe

2009-09-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

As promised the new version of lorio ash. Samples pictured in prior post.

Alberta Slip 43.5

EPK 5.9

Whiting 29.6

Wood Ash 13.9

Grestely Borate 8

RIO 3

TiO2 6

Reworking a glaze for testing

2009-09-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

So I have a version of strontium crystal magic I had some decent success with and want to line test it with yellow iron oxide to see if I can coax a good orange out of it.

First thing I want to do is normalize the recipe to 100 grams. This is done by getting the total weight of the ingredients ... I'll call that W then dividing each ingredient by W. I'll call each ingredient's weight x. The result of this equation is the normalize weight I am after, I'll call that number... R. The equation is pretty simple:

R = x/W

Keeping in mind that R will be a decimal, less than one. It can best be thought of as a percentage. I set up a simple spreadsheet template to handle this for me.

Here is my initial recipe:

Strontium Crystal Magic

Custer spar 120

Whiting 45

Strontium Carb (type D) 33

EPK 39

Fr 3124 12

Lithium Carb. 12

Titanium dioxide 36

Bentonite 6

Yellow Iron ox 6 for orange

Now I did one other thing to get this recipe ready for line testing. I pulled the yellow iron oxide out of the recipe. I did this because I want the main recipe, the recipe without colorants to equal 100. I can add colorants later. Here are the R values I get for this recipe:

Custer spar 40

Whiting 15

Strontium Carb 11

EPK 13

3124 4

LiCarb 4

TiO2 12

Bentonite 2

Add it up and you get 100. Which is much easier to work with when testing a glaze. Now because I pulled the yellow iron oxide out and it was initially 6 I know that it was initially about 2%. So I am going to start my line test at 3% and go to 13%.

For line tests I use 100 gram batches mixed up in the plastic beer cups you get when you go to a party. I'll mix up 10 identical batches of dry ingredients then drop in the correct amount of colorants, add water, drip or brush my tiles (spraying them is a hassle) and wait for the next firing to see the results.

The new version of Lorio ash

2009-09-25T17:30:00.001-07:00

A couple pictures of a vase with the new version of Lorio ash I made. I really like how it turned out. Again the glaze doesn't run past where it was applied.

The recipe is at the studio on a piece of paper. I will post it when I bring it home.

Rule Number 1 of Glaze Club

2009-09-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have some new glaze test results.

I tried a new version of strontium crystal magic that I got from a cone six glaze group.

Strontium Crystal Magic
Custer spar 120
Whiting 45
Strontium Carb (type D) 33EPK 39
Fr 3124 12
Lithium Carb. 12
Titanium dioxide 36
Bentonite 6
Yellow Iron ox 6 for orange

I was very excited to get this recipe. I have a working version of SCM but I couldn't

for the life of me get the signature orange color of Steven Hill's SCM. So here is this group that Steven Hill is involved with and I have high hopes for this glaze. Here's

the result:

The result is promising but not exactly what I was looking for. I forgot the first rule of glazing... glazes don't travel. To give you an example of why glaze tweaking is so important and how badly some glazes travel I give you my own story. We have three electric kilns in the studio I use. I have one glaze that looks different depending on which of the three kilns you fire it in. One kiln is beautiful, one I get teadust crystals - this is not a teadust glaze, the third never fires it to maturity. So I was foolish to rush out thinking that someone else's version of SCM would magically work for me. Developing a glaze is a very personal and individual quest.

The reason I got a pale peach color instead of the vibrant orange could be any one or a combination of several factors. As always someone else's gaze recipe should never be anything more than a starting point.

So the next thing for me is to start pulling the levers to adjust this glaze to produce the color I want in the kilns I have. One thing to note is that I will only adjust one factor at a time. If you change more than one item at a time you will have trouble determining what worked and what didn't. The first thing I will tweak is the amount of yellow iron oxide. I am going to do a line test - 3% - 13%. I expect to get the color I want somewhere in that range.

I have 3 other new glazes but I am late starting dinner I will post those later.

Pitchers

2009-09-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

I have been pretty busy looking for a new house and haven't spent much time in the studio.

I did get a chance to make some pitchers. I have 3 drying. Not a lot but I don't do pitchers very often.

I am hoping to get some of the bisque ware I've accumulated glazed this weekend. Try out that new version of lorio ash.

Test results

2009-09-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

Opened the kiln this morning.

I had two test glazes in the kiln, a very modified lorio ash and a modified Leach Yellow Seto.

The modified lorio ash came out exactly how I expected and what I wanted. Yellow with darker rivulets. As importantly to me the glaze ran but not too much. The amount of run I am looking for is a pronounced but controlled run. Sound confusing? Not really, my criteria is simple; No running past the application point. So on a vertical test tile the glaze runs no further down the tile than the brush/dip line. This glaze didn't. The runs stopped right at the brush line. I am extremely happy with this test. Now the next step, putting on pots.

The yellow seto came out strange. Very matte. I suspect it didn't melt. But the thing is... it came out purple. Yeah, freaking purple. A dry matte purple. While certainly not what I was after it's interesting nonetheless. I am debating next steps here. Not sure if I fork the recipe keeping a small batch of the recipe as is or just bagging it and working on the recipe to get the result I was after.

Lastly my very dark blue glaze - I had three pots glazed with this glaze, all three developed tea dust like crystals. Not what I expected. Not sure if this was an application issue (too thick) or the kiln under fired. I didn't load or fire this load so there were no witness cones, normally I always use witness cones. Without the witness cones I can't say for sure what cone the kiln fired to.

Back at it

2009-09-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

So the house thing fell through. The house had dry rot, insects, and a bad foundation. We're looking again but in the mean time.... back to the studio!

I pulled a couple tumblers out of the kiln that came out very nice. I used an iron bearing stoneware to make these. I normally use porcelain but once in awhile I like to switch it up and use an iron bearing clay just to keep things interesting.

Well, these tumblers had clear liner inside, the outside had a thin coat of strontium crystal magic (mod), then a coat of an iron red, then some highlight stripes, grestley borate/rutile and a copper saturated nuka. The combinations worked really well.

One of the glazes I am missing from my palette is a reliable yellow. To that end I mixed up a modified version of Leach Yellow Seto today:

Wood ash 48

Yellow Ochre 25

Neph Syn 25

Lithium Carb 2

We'll see if it A. Melts B. Doesn't suck.

Oh and in the same kiln load I am firing a test of the modified lorio ash I mentioned a couple posts ago. I replaced the rutile with RIO and TiO2 and bumped up the flux to increase the run and smooth out the bubbles.

Some changes

2009-08-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

I try to keep non-pottery stuff out of this blog but sometimes other topics bleed through. This is one such post.

My pottery is on hold for awhile. In the next 30 days I will be getting married and moving.

This impacts my pottery because I will be moving away from the studio I currently share. I will still be close enough that I can go but it will no longer be a quick trip, instead about 30-40 minutes each way. I know myself well enough to know this means a lot less time in the studio.

But it's not all bad news.

The new place has a half an acre with two free standing sheds. One is already configured very close to how I would set up a studio. Lots of shelves, skylights, good ventilation. The only thing missing is running water.

The other shed? It's a tear down... and rebuild as a kiln shed.

So my pottery efforts will be slowing and shifting focus. But in the end I should have a home studio as well as a fuel fired kiln. Reduction glazes here I come =)

Modified Lorio Ash tests

2009-08-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

I unloaded the kiln this morning and saw my modified lorio ash glaze. It had the colors I was after but man did it blister. Tons of bubbles and blisters. It wasn't pretty.

So let's rework the formula.

Alberta Slip 43.5

EPK 13.9

Whiting 29.6

Wood Ash 13.9

Rutile 10

I suspect the rutile is causing the issue. So my next test will lose the rutile, replacing it with RIO and TiO2

Alberta Slip 43.5

EPK 13.9

Whiting 29.6

Wood Ash 13.9

RIO 3

Tio2 6

I also want it to run a little more than it is currently running so I am going drop the EPK down and add more flux.

Alberta Slip 43.5

EPK 5.9

Whiting 29.6

Wood Ash 13.9

Grestley Borate 8

RIO 3

Tio2 6

Working on a palette

2009-08-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

So as I was working up yet another ash glaze today I got thinking why am I doing this? I seem to be driven to mess around with glazes but hadn't really stopped to think what my goal is.

Once I thought about it the goal became clear quickly. I want a diverse, reliable glaze palette. Pretty simple.

To that end I started taking stock of what I have:

Basics, base glazes

An iron red. And iron red should be a in every potter's inventory. Mine is really more bronze than red but I like it.

A green nuka. This is a wonderful green that will develop black crystals where thick.

A blue/black. Love this glaze.

A matte white. I never use by itself, rather something I use to alter other glazes. Mine is a version of the ever popular strontium crystal matte.

A clear. Yup, everyone needs a clear.

A tin/chrome red. Wonderful little red.

Accent glazes

A green ash glaze. This is a modification of Aerni Ash that has a truck load of copper. Very nice, very green.

A very good cone 6 crystal base. I sometimes use cobalt in mine. But this reliably develops crystals at cone 6 without a controlled cooling. I use this dripped, stripped or poured as an accent or pooled in the bottom of pots. I get .25-.30 inch crystals without a controlled cooling.

A grestely borate/rutile wash. 75/25 mix that I use for highlights on a lot of pots. Works well with every one of my base glazes.

Now for what I am missing....

A reliable black/ very dark ash glaze. To this end I have been playing with barnard slip ash glazes. One of the glazes I tried today was a modification of an iron saturated ash from one of Michael Bailey's books in an attempt to get a good dark ash.

A yellow ash. Something that looks like Lorio ash in cone 6 oxidation.

A true black temmoku. I use VC's temmoku gold but really don't care for it. When it's used on the inside of a bowl it will completely cover with yellow crystals giving a mate effect that I don't like. My dark blue/black uses cobalt and I want something that will break red as a good temmoku should, not break blue.

A cone 6 oxidation chun or jun glaze. These are breath taking glazes. I really want to add one to my palette. This one will be tough to develop.

A white nuka that I can use as white or add colorants to. I have a green nuka but haven't tried it without the copper or with other colorants. I may already have this glaze and it just awaits testing to confirm. Or I may have to start from scratch here.

A cone 6 oribe. I love the look of a good oribe. I suspect once I start work on this it will be fairly easy.

Some recent results

2009-08-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

I had some unexpected results from a recent kiln load of pots.

I put a strontium matte under the alberta slip glaze I have been using lately. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting what I got. I got a beautiful floating blue type glaze. Check out the plate below.

The dark stripes are drips of a blue crystalline glaze.

Here is the same combo, strontium matte under alberta slip glaze but this time with barnard slip ash glaze on the rim.

The pale stripes are a grestley borate/rutile wash.

I had a couple other nice pots, some nice mugs but as you can see I haven't yet spent the time and money to get a good photography set up for my pottery pictures. The pictures of the mugs came crappy so I will not up load them.

I have a bowl that I tried something different on and it worked. I used the alberta slip glaze on the bowl expect for a circle about 2.5 inches in the bottom. In that circle I put in a thick coat of blue crystalline glaze. The pool of crystalline glaze came out great. Nice crystals without a computer controlled kiln. Beautiful color. I am going to mix up a batch of clear crystalline glaze and pool it in a bowl letting it overlap a little with the alberta slip glaze. I expect the edges to have blue crystals giving way to white crystals.

A day spent glazing

2009-08-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

I had the day off work and spent a good part of the day in the studio.

I had stacked up a pretty healthy stack of bisqued ware. Four or five large bowls, several large platters, a bunch of mugs and one of the tentacle vases. On all of the I used the obsidian 3 modified glaze. That's the very very dark blue.

I also put a coat of strontium matte under the obsidian on several of the pots. I am not sure how it will come out but I am hopeful.

I used several different accent glazes; a crystalline glaze with cobalt, a gerstely borate / rutile wash, a wood ash and barnard slip glaze, lastly some Aerni ash (modified) with cobalt.

One glaze I used today was new. I wanted a yellowish ash. I dug out John Britt's book and set my sights on Lorio Ash.

Alberta Slip 43.5

EPK 13.9

Whiting 29.6

Wood Ash 13.9

Rutile 10

I fire at cone 6, not cone 10 so I have to change it up. Just a little though. I have never used this glaze but the pictures of it at cone 10 show a runny glaze. Well, I want it runny at cone 6 as well. So I sub out the EPK for a flux.

Alberta Slip 43.5

Gerstley Borate 13.9

Whiting 29.6

Wood Ash 13.9

Rutile 10

I put this on a couple pots but pots I really don't like. We'll see how it comes out. I didn't have enough time after mixing and glazing to fire so that will have to wait until later.

Score!

2009-07-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

Still too damn hot to spend time in the studio but I did have a nice little victory today.

John Britt (who rocks) posted on his blog that Clay Works, a clay store in Tacoma WA has low melt spodumene in stock. Well, my folks live about 2 miles from that store. I called and they picked me up 25 lbs of it. Not too much as I think it's best used in high fire glazes, and I fire at cone 6 electric currently. But I am going to hang on to it until I relocate to a studio with a nice cone 10 gas or wood kiln.

I'm melting....

2009-07-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

No, not my glazes.

It's like a mile from the surface of the Sun here. We set an all time record high today. 103. The studio does not have AC.

I don't want to throw because even if I cover the pot it will still be at risk of drying out before I get back to trim it.

That leaves glazing and firing the kiln. And it's 103 and no AC. Firing a kiln? No thank you.

It's funny, the extended cold snap messed with my studio time because my clay froze. Now it's too dang hot. Oh well, can't change the weather.

Some glaze results

2009-07-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

So as is always the case, as soon as I feel like a master of all things pottery, I unload a kiln that nothing turns out.

My beautiful black that I love so much... yeah that doesn't play nicely with the red I love. I glazed 3 cups and 2 bowls with the combination of the obsidian and the tin chrome red. I expected the black to darken from the interaction with the chrome. But that's not what happened. The black/blue glaze washed out. It lightened up considerably so that's it's a middle of the road blue. Where the glazes transitioned to each other I expected a purple. Not such luck, it turned white. Yeah, a blue so dark it's almost black +red equals white. Go figure. I assume the tin is the wild card here. I think the tin is what's responsible the unexpected result.

Next was my line test of barnard slip/wood ash/F3134.

Results are pictured below.

Left to right:

50/50/50

50/50/40

50/50/30

50/50/20

50/50/10

I wasn't really happy with any of them. While with 10% frit the glaze melted well it ran more than I wanted. It didn't give me that webbing of a good ash glaze either.

So at 20% I got the webbing but the color vanished. And it ran. A lot.

The other samples had the same issues as the 20% test but more pronounced.

I might work in the 10% range some more. I want the color. Also I am going to try the black/blue glaze with all the different iron glazes I have. I expect it to play nicely with iron glazes.

The freedom to not care

2009-07-25T06:10:00.000-07:00

It's street fair season in Seattle. Every weekend during the Summer there is a street fair somewhere in the Seattle area. This weekend it's Bellevue's turn to host those braver than I who have chosen the less safe route of creating arts and or crafts for a living. As I strolled through the booths admiring the works in all manner of mediums I was jealous. Until.

I was jealous until I noticed a pattern. Nearly every artist, regardless of medium, had a large amount of safe, salable work. But they also would have a couple pieces that were much grander than the utility pieces. A couple pieces that let you peek at the artist's vision. These were the pieces that always drew my eye. Beautiful oversized teapots with multiple elaborate faux cane handles or a wall hanging made of tiles, some porcelain some raku that formed a kimono. These were accompanied by an army of bowls and mugs. Mirrors with whimsical porcelain frames glazed with multi-colored crystalline glazes the crystal as big as 50 cent pieces surrounded by small reasonably priced plates.

I may be dead wrong here but I don't believe I am. When I am in the studio my thoughts go to my ambitious pieces. The pieces I have never tried before or more often the pieces I have tried but failed at. I only make mugs when I need them or plan to give them as a gift. I only make bowls when I have broken too many at home or someone asks me for one (still have a backlog I need to get to of requested bowls). I never go to the studio thinking about "Will other people buy this piece?" Never. My sole concern is do I like the piece? Am I happy with it? I took this freedom to not care about marketability for granted. I never thought about it until yesterday.

Those of us who do not make art for a living, our livelihood is not tied to the acceptance of our work have a freedom to do whatever the wind whispers in our ear. It doesn't matter who else likes our work. I don't need to produce a stack of bowls with floating blue to go with my gaudy tentacle vases. Suddenly, I am less jealous of those I will see at next week's street fair.

Getting back in the studio

2009-07-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

After taking some time off to spend time with my daughter I am hitting the studio again. Pottery is a slow hobby. I have a bunch of pots drying but so far nothing bisqued or completed.

I have a couple large bowls, a set of mugs with twirly handles, and a new tentacle vase. The tentacle vase is a "pillow" vase, semi-spherical, very narrow mouth. The vase was about 10-12 inches tall before I started messing with it. All my tentacle pots have extruded additions, this specific pots has three tentacles added pointing straight up. They were attached along the mouth of the vase. I really like this pot. I hope it makes it through the whole process.

The tentacles I add to these pots are extruded. I extrude anywhere from 3 inches to 12 inches. I then pull the non-attached end close. Then the closed end I gently pull like a handle. After I get the general shape and length I want I cut the tube/cone off with a wire. Then I move the piece to a board, putting it down resting on the end I just cut off. I let it dry a bit until the vase that it will be attached to is trimmed.

In addition to the pots I have drying I made a line test of barnard slip/wood ash/F3134. I am seeing what it's going to take to make my barnard slip/wood ash glaze to melt.

I'll post some pictures as things get further along in the process.

Lastly, I made some behind the scenes updates to my glaze db. Nothing too major, better internal logging. Actual tagging support comes next.

http://www.glazejunkie.com/

Found the root cause of my ash glaze issues

2009-07-09T21:25:00.000-07:00

I did a simple melt test.

My ash is not melting at cone 6. Thus all my recent batches of ash glaze look like poop.

So my next step is to find some more ash. That actually melts at cone 6.

And then remix all my ash glazes.

Grrr

Weird stuff

2009-07-02T16:45:00.000-07:00

So I expected to have to learn a lot as I took up pottery as a hobby. I have learned about glazes, throwing, firing, chemistry, design, selling, all sorts of stuff. One thing I never thought I would have to learn about is stealing. But here I am learning about stealing.

There are 12 members at the studio I use. That means a lot of pottery is produced. a lot of bad pottery. A lot of kiln disasters. A lot of glaze mishaps. A lot of crappy pots. So we got tired of these accidents laying around the place and started a shrine to the kiln gods. Well, we really just started putting our crappy and or broken pots in a small garden outside our studio door. We stacked the pots, hung them from the fence, put them on rebar we drove into the ground. We just decorated the garden with these throw away pots. It was a little abstract and cool.

I was throwing about a week ago and someone pulled up to the studio and parked. This lady got out and walked over to the shrine and stared for awhile. She got back in her car and left. Strange I thought. A few days later I noticed one of my favorite pots in the garden was gone. I stared looking thinking someone had moved it. I realized many pots were missing. Someone was stealing our pots. I was angry and amused at the same time.

These were/are pots that are total crap. And yet someone was stealing them. I was angry - how dare someone steal this stuff. Yeah, it's crap but it's MY crap. Keep your dirty hands off my stuff. But I also had to laugh. Really? You want to steal the vase that had the bottom blow out in the bisque firing because it wasn't dry? Really? That's what you're gonna steal? Are you high?

So I chuckled to myself through grinding teeth.

Yesterday I was throwing again and some lady pulled up, parked, walked over to the shrine and loaded up her arms with three pots. A vase that had a barnard slip glaze that didn't melt on it (horrifically ugly), a broken plate, a broken bowl. While I was watching. Got back in her car and drove off.

Seriously people. WTF.

Test results

2009-06-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

So the new black came out beautiful. But a really really deep blue. Not really black. Still, I love it and will be keeping it in stock.

Alberta Slip 75%

F3134 25%

Cobalt Oxide 5%

I tried it with several of my normal accent glazes. The combination of this glaze with a rutile/grestly borate accents came out awesome. It produces bright gold/orange crystals with milky pale blue streaks.

On a separate note I have had problems with my ash glazes the last few kiln loads. Maybe I have a bad batch of glaze. Something is funky. They are not melting. I use witness cones and the kiln is firing perfectly but the glazes that used to melt are not melting any longer.

Some new glaze tests

2009-06-26T06:11:00.000-07:00

I got some time in the studio and mixed up a couple glaze tests.

The one I am most excited about is a modification of Richard Aerni's Obsidian 3:

Albetra Slip 91%

Cobalt Oxide 9%

My version:

Alberta Slip 75%

F3134 25%

Cobalt Oxide 5%

I am hoping for a deep glossy black with a lot of character. I tried this in combination with a number of my normal glazes.

I also mixed up batches of wood ash/slip glazes. I had tried these before but after a few test tiles didn't yield god results I shelved them. I always felt that I didn't give them a fair shake. So I mixed up new batches and applied these in combination with my normal glazes. I *hope* to get good results. I used these on a number of bowls that I had lying around the studio.

Barnard Slip 50%

Wood Ash 50%

Alberta Slip 50%

Wood Ash 50%

One important note is that I did not sieve these glazes. Initially when I tested these I had sieved these glazes. After talking to potters more knowledgeable than me I realized that the secret sauce in slips, especially Barnard Slip, is in the stuff I probably sieved out. Barnard has a lot of "sand" in it. This "sand" is high in Mg which even in small amounts can have a large impact on glazes.

Lastly I also did a test of just wood ash. I mixed straight wood ash with water and applied on a bowl. On areas that were both bare and covered by other glazes. I have seen this done by other potters with good results. I want to see how it works with my glazes, kilns.

I expect to fire these tests over the weekend. I'll post pictures if they're any good.

An adventure at the center of the known universe

2009-06-23T19:20:00.000-07:00

I spent part of my past weekend at the center of the known universe. Or as those of us in the Seattle know it in Freemont. They have a great street fair and I spent an entire day there. And yeah, I saw naked people walking around in the crowd. Freemont is full of freakin' hippies.

I ate too much junk food as I tend to do at these types of things. I spent too much money as I tend to do at street fairs. I saw some really cool stuff. Some pottery, some not.

I had a great talk with Sarah Parent. Her work was really quite beautiful. I bought a small bowl. I don't need it nor really have room for more pottery but I want to support people doing good work, and she is doing what I consider good work.

I bought this design on a tee shirt. I didn't catch the guy's name and his web site is pretty bare but I was just hypnotized by his work. Something about them, I can't explain. I just had to keep looking.

I spent time at Matthew Patton's booth. I have always liked his plates. He has wide glaze palette. I find Matthew's work inspiring because nearly any color you can name he has a plate with that color glaze (I think the sole exception is true tweety bird yellow). When I was having a hard time believing that a good food safe red could be produced I saw some of Matthew's plates in a local gallery. Bright red. Looking at Matthew's work reminds me that nearly anything is possible with glaze.

There were many other potters. Most were boring. Same hard core craft - craftcore - pots. You know what I am talking about. The same mugs everyone makes. The same strainers. The same plates. The same bowls. The same glaze palettes.

I spent a little time in the studio. Not nearly enough. I threw a decent vase. Nothing special. A wide shoulder guessing 10-12 inches, narrow mouth, about 3 inches in diameter. I attached 7 tentacles. All 7 were covered in red slip. I am letting this dry a tad as working with the slip was messier than I thought it would be. Once things are a bit drier I am going to add some black slip spikes to the tentacles.

Not enough hours in the day

2009-06-14T17:36:00.001-07:00

Things have been going pretty well. As I posted earlier the sale went great. Sold lots of stuff - including a bowl I threw that we brought hummus to the sale in. We washed it out (sort of) put it on the shelf and boom! it was gone. Now I am running into trouble. I don't have enough time to get the stuff done I want to do.

I am trying a new technique to throw bowls. It will take practice. Time. I want to keep making the tentacle pots. Time. I have a tin of glazes to make. Time. I have a bunch of glaze tests to do. Time. And again I am a weekend potter. On top of the weekend potting my daughter is in town for a month and a half and I am spending most of my spare time with her, so much less time than normal potting.

I was in Seattle Pottery Supply and they have a bookcase with back copies of Ceramics Monthly for sale. I was browsing when one issue caught my eye. The cover had a geeky looking potter in front of a half dozen large beautiful pots with stunning ash glazes. I am a sucker for good ash glazes. I picked up the issue and thumbed through to see who the potter is; Richard Aerni. I wrote about him in an earlier post. I modified his ash recipe to work at cone 6 and freakin love it. Well, here he was on the cover of Ceramics Monthly in Dec 1994. The article goes into detail about his ash glaze as well as some other glazes of his. He has a slip listed that I am going to try to modify for cone 6. What really caught my eye though was his black slip glazes:

Obsidian 1

Albany Slip 91%

Cobalt Ox. 9%

Obsidian 3

Alberta Slip 91%

Cobalt Ox 9%

Now those recipes are interesting to me. First, he seems to use them as a liner... and that high cobalt ox would freak me out. I am going to read up on cobalt leeching. Second, just slip and cobalt? How cool is that? I don't have any Albany slip but I do have Barnard and Alberta slip. I am going to do some line tests and see what I need to add to get those to melt completely at cone 6. Then work in the cobalt. I am hoping for a good black liner glaze.

I haven't had a good black since I moved from cone 10 to cone 6/ I know... how the hell do I get by without a black? I had a great iron based black, mirror gloss, smooth, beautiful. I haven't found a cone 6 black I really like.

Now, I just need to find the time to do the line tests... and read up on cobalt levels... time.

The sale was interesting

2009-06-06T18:28:00.000-07:00

The sale today taught me a lot.

I brought roughly 30 pieces to sell. About 15 good and 15 crap I just wanted to get rid of. I sold every piece but 3. One of the left overs was one that I thought would sell right away. My favorite pot was the second one to sell. The lady who bought it raved as she told me exactly where it would go in her house. She had the "perfect spot" for it.

What I learned;

1. Glaze colors: My favorite glaze, an iron red, is not everyone's favorite glaze. I have not sold a single pot with this glaze. Not one. On the other hand I sold every piece with floating blue. I sold all but one piece that had the tin/chrome red. Watching what sold for others - bright colors sell.

2. Be interesting: I saw a lot of pots that were made by professional potters. Most of the made me go "meh". Why? They weren't interesting. They were the same shapes, forms I have been seeing at arts and crafts fairs my entire life. Interesting pots sold, traditional pots sold less. I'll post more about this later. I thought a lot about it today. I don't want sound arrogant.

3. You gotta sell: Pots sell better if you try to sell them. I would like to sit back and let the pots speak for themselves. But reality is that it's still retail sales and treating your customers like ... well, customers helps sell more product.

The studio sold a grand total of 4 pieces last year. This year we sold over $400 worth of pots. No pots was over $30, most were under $10. We're going to do another sale in Oct. We hope to be better for that sale.

Ready for a sale

2009-06-05T15:56:00.001-07:00

Several of us from the studio I play in worked this afternoon to set up a booth for a sale tomorrow. I had my daughter with me, it was a lot of fun.

One thing that struck me was the number of people I saw from last years version of the same sale. This sale is the only one I have been in and this is only my second year - but already I am seeing there that the craft and arts people who sell here are a pretty small community.

What's cool about that is that the two women who had booths opposite our booth last year have the booth opposite us again. As we were setting up our booth I was looking at their work. I can see the progress of their work from last year. Similar styles but with new elements, new colors, new textures via some nice crawl glazes. Similar style but more complex, more interesting. I bought two pieces from one of the women last year and will probably buy a couple more this year - her work is noticeably better.

This got me thinking; has my work grown since last year? How? Is it really better? I don't think I can answer the question. I think my work has changed. I know I have gotten better at throwing, better at glaze creation and application, better at firing. My work is more predictable to me. But does that translate into "better" work? Will the people who saw my work last year think "he has grown"? I don't know.

The lack of clear feedback makes me want to go back to school to get objective grades. Maybe sales can be that gauge of "better". I think maybe I can use sales as a substitute for a teacher giving that critical, unbiased feedback. Last year I sold two pieces. This year I have probably 30 pieces for sale. About half of them I like, I consider good examples of my work. I expect them to sell. The other half are crap. I am basically donating them so any cash they generate folds back into the studio.

Tomorrow will be interesting.

Doh

2009-06-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

So I couldn't help myself. I bought some decal paper and read up on laser toner decals. Even bought a book about it. The decal paper is not cheap either, $4 a sheet.

I only forgot one step - to check my printer to ensure it's a laser printer, not an ink jet. Yeah. I have an ink jet printer.

On the plus side I refired a bowl I had written off as a lost cause. Not so lost now. Not really stunning or anything but sellable. I also ran a couple of glaze tests and got a nice result with a Mg crawl over a black glaze. My only beef is the black glaze reacted to the Mg and it turned a chocolate brown when it's normally pitch black. Oh well. Still looked nice and had a nice texture.

I bought some under glaze pencils. My SO, finance, wife, girlfriend, whatever label you wanna put on her, is quite an artist. She paints beautifully. She's been asking to draw on some of my pots. This is how I am going to glaze the platters. She drew a really nice poppy with a black underglaze pencil on one. I will spray it with clear tonight and fire sometime this week. She'll have red, blue, yellow, and green to work with for the next couple platters.

Learning to throw platters

2009-05-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

I seem to have been taught the secret sauce of platters. Platters are something that have confounded me until this past month. My platters were always small in diameter but thick. Way too thick. I just sucked at throwing these.

Well, one of my studio mates, Evelia the studio owner, went to a class taught by some Italian potter (who is super hot according to Evelia) and he taught her all sorts of things including how to make better platters. I asked her to show me, she did. I immediately threw the three best platters I have ever thrown. I was in the studio last night and the platters are dry now and I was moving them to the shelf for items ready to fire and found myself amazed at how light they are. And that’s the holy grail for me – a piece should be lighter in your hand than you expect. And these are not just a little lighter these are like feathers but large platters, larger than normal dinner plates and still MUCH lighter than a normal dinner plate.

The little tweak to my throwing that Evelia showed me? Don’t open a platter like you would a normal pot. Use the heel of your hand and push the clay down and out. Compress the clay with the heel of your palm at the same time your pushing it out. It works. At least for me.

That’s one less form I have to obsess about. Now back to teapots… and mugs… and bottles… and….

Oh and I still trying to figure out how to glaze these bad boys. I am thinking of using an accent glaze, like 90 Neph Syn, 10 F3134 +10 stain, dripped in lines then covered with my normal clear. Maybe some black and yellow drips. Maybe red. The new season of “Dexter” starts soon =)

Getting ready for a sale

2009-05-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I lost the race with the ugly teapot. I will speak of it no more.

Now I am getting ready for a sale on June 6th. Trying to get everything I have ready glazed.

I have a couple platters I need to glaze but realized that all the glazes I have been working with only get interesting when they are on vertical surfaces. Ash glazes, runny glazes. If they aren't designed for vertical surfaces, they aren't food safe. So these platters are kind of a puzzle for me. I Have no idea how to glaze them. Clear with some colored drips? Find a good food safe color? I want them to be cool, not boring. And I have very little time to solve this little puzzle. Oi.

And just a tiny follow up on something I posted waaaay back in the dead of Winter. I had some greenware that froze. I got a ton of strange cracks in those pots. At the time I was pretty sure that the cracks were related to the freezing. Well, I promptly forgot about those cracks until a discussion I had with one of the other potters at the studio this past week. Neither of us have had the tell tale "S" cracks in a pot (from bad compression) for literally years. After the freezing I haven't had a single pot crack. Not one. So, yeah the cracks I can safely say were due to the freezing. Seems funny talking about freezing clay when I got a nasty sun burn yesterday.

Racing the ugly teapot

2009-05-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

I was wondering what comes next, well I think I have my answer. At first I thought it might be decals because they seem cool, and challenging. But no, that’s not it.

Teapots.

As I have semi-ranted about in the last few posts I made a teapot that I really REALLY didn’t like. And before I could really do anything to stop it my SO snapped some photos and emailed them out. Then proceeded to literally – and I swear I am not making this part up – snuck the damn thing out of the house so I would destroy it.

Now I am on a mission to as quickly as possible make several much better teapots and ship them to the relatives that asked for the ugly teapot. Ship them something that’s not embarrassingly bad. My edge here is while my SO has hidden the ugly teapot from me she is also infamously slow about doing things like shipping stuff cross country. I figure I have a couple weeks to a couple months to finish.

So I threw 2 teapots; one very tall, semi- narrow, one very short, very wide. I am experimenting a little with shapes for the body of the teapot, looking for one that really grabs me. I put on some handles (the new style I have been using) and didn’t really care for either. So, I am starting to obsess about teapots. Shapes, glazes, handles, spouts.

Teapots are what’s next for me.

Back at it

2009-05-09T07:23:00.001-07:00

Well, I mentioned in my earlier post that I made a tea pot that I hated but nearly everyone else liked. I really do think this pot is ugly. I am embarrassed by it. My SO decided to send pictures of it to her family, and they all want it.

So I am back to the studio to make tea pots. That don't embarrass me, that I can send out to family. I have all day and about 200 lbs of clay. I will probably do 3 or 4 teapots then get antsy to do something else.

I am pretty excited because I have gotten some glazes stable and the throwing has been going well. Plus I finally figured out a technique to do the handles I like. So I *hope* these tea pots come out nicely. Otherwise I take a hammer to them before anyone else sees them.

A good kiln load

2009-05-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

Ah, so last time I was at the studio I glazed a bunch of pots, like 12. Which I realize is not a lot for a normal potter but for me it was a record. Well during the week one of the folks at the studio loaded my pots up and fired 'em. I got a text tonight on my way home about how nicely they turned out and what a stud I am... really.

So I dropped by to see what came out of the kiln.

I had 4 bowls. Nice sized, light, mostly the same size and shape. Mostly. Glazed inside and out with a tin chrome red. Outside had stripes of a blue glaze. The blue stripes turned purple white-ish. I really like them.

I had 2 matching vases. Bottles, straight sides, small mouths. They're about 14 inches tall. Same red with blue accents. I like these two because they're nearly identical. I have been working to be able to replicate items and these two are pretty darn close but they are not simple shapes to throw (for me) and the glazes are predictable.

I had three plates. Decent plates. Glazed in floating blue. Meh. These were an exercise in repetition. The plates came out nearly identical so success.

I had one large bowl. Again red and blue. I got carried away.

I had one pot that was a nice sphere bottle. The glaze came out great. Iron red for a based. Lithium saturated glaze over that. Then the top third was a fake ash. Came out great. Unfortunately the pot cracked ... in like three places... I cried a little.

Lastly the dreaded gnome tea pot. I hate this pot. But everyone else seems to love the freaking thing. I can not describe how ugly this little thing is. A tea pot. Iron red with the lithium saturate over it. Glaze is Ok... the pot itself is Ok but the lid... oh so horrible. I need eye bleach after looking at it. I am going to put it away until the studio sale then dump it. I guess what I don't get is really, I swear other folks really seem to like this pot and I absolutely loathe it.