unpack

I opened the kiln and unpacked it this morning; yesterday was a miserable day and today there was sunshine, good for photographing pots. it was a pack a little too tight – some of the pieces didn’t get quite as much heat as others, and one will be fired again, but that is the one with all the porcelain loosely layered – I think all those pieces need to be taken up to a temperature where the porcelain will start to fuse, and then I won’t need to glaze them. that’s on the advice of my friend Antje Ernestus, whose work is all porcelain these days. so I will have to get the kiln up another 30 or so degrees Celcius.

the porcelain worked well on 2 smaller pots, which I made with the leftover clay from the big pot which broke. it was a layer of David Leach porcelain rolled out in a thick layer on top of a crank. the porcelain cracked but not enough to destroy the pot, and then the shino worked really well over that, with a crawl pattern much larger than over the other clays.

this pot worked well but the glaze would have been more rust and green if it hadn’t been stuck rather close to several others of similar shape. I was disappointed when I first saw it, but now I like the graphic contrast of the blackened pouring against the white porcelain inlay.

this one is a version of the scratched chalk beach I photographed a month ago. I am pleased that I got some almost greens on the porcelain here. this is a much thinner layer of it, and it seems to have no trouble expanding and contracting with the different clay under it.

and this one I am pleased with as I hadn’t tried the more opaque glazes over porcelain. this just has porcelain buttered and scored over a body that is basically St Thomas reduction; a very dark iron bearing stoneware clay which has gone out of production now. my matt copper/tin/dolomite glaze and the wood ash glaze are working really well on it.

and the pictures of the rest are here