Handmade Pottery + Ceramic Jewelry

First off, thank you to everyone who left comments and emails after my last post. I really, really appreciate all your kind words. Our house is oddly silent now, and we’re slowly returning to normal and are remembering Helper as he was when he was healthy and happy. Thank God for my dog, Zuzu, who is my constant companion and follows me from room to room as I go about my day.

I thought I would share some recent glaze test tiles I did in the past 2 weeks. I was trying to recreate a glaze that I made in college. It’s a cone 6 oxidation glaze called Chinese Blue Green. Oxidation means that it’s fired in an electric kiln vs. a gas or reduction fire. I’m working with my ceramics mentor from the Art Student’s League of Denver right now on a glaze refresher since I’d like to get my studio up and running. As you can see from my original tiles and my new ones, the recipe is off-it’s almost as if I didn’t add the copper carbonate. So, last Wednesday, I remade a small 100 gram batch of the glaze and adjusted the colbalt carbonate down to .5% because cobalt carb is such a strong colorant.

If you take a look at my recipe below, you can see how closely linked the ceramic arts is to understanding geology. All of the raw materials used in the clay bodies and glaze ingredients come from the earth! I don’t know about you, but when I start to read all this technical stuff, my eyes tend to glaze over. (Pun intended.) I could buy pre-made glazes, but they’re expensive and I really believe that if you’re going into this art form, one should understand the science and technical aspects behind the medium. Making my own glazes will allow infinite color and texture possibilities and I will be able to develop a signature set of glaze colors.

On the recommendation of my mentor, I am reading Robin Hopper’s book, The Ceramic Spectrum…it’s a veritable ceramic glaze bible!

Meanwhile, I spent yesterday at the Building Creative Businesses Expo in Denver and ran into fellow Colorado artist, Lisa Call who alerted me to the expo in the first place–thank you. More about the expo later this week.