The ferns are out and bursting – such a nice change after using a prolific weed and frozen ginkgo leaves on my trays all winter.
I’m very happy with my new butter dishes. Finally, when someone asks me at a show if I have a covered butter dish, I can say “yes!”
I finally glazed the new slip-cast cantaloupe bowls. I may try extending the clear glaze below the rim that’s over the green on the next batch – that color looks a lot like the rind of a real cantaloupe – but all in all, I’m pretty happy with the way these came out.
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I am making other things besides urns, but I really like the way this one came out and had to post it. The matte and gloss surface developed beautifully after a third firing.
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After a lot of research and trial and error, I finally have the right grinding system set up to finish off the bottom of these pots, thanks to Tim Scull of Canton Clayworks (a master of crystalline glazes among other things), who gave me step-by-step instructions. Because this type of glaze is a “runner”, I fired them with a pedestal/glaze catcher attached to the bottom. Afterwards, the pedestal is knocked off, leaving sharp and rough edges of glaze that need to be ground down and polished. Tim recommended an expanding drum with three different grit sanding belts attached to a lapidary motor, and sure enough, it worked like a charm. One of these beauties went to a dear friend, to hold her father’s ashes. I’ve had a lot of requests for memorial urns lately, and I find that I really like making them. It is an honor to make something that is so sensitive and meaningful to other people’s lives.
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Cantaloupe bowls and a covered butter dish – can’t wait to see what these new slip-cast forms look like glazed.
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Here’s another urn, where I used decals for the decoration that I made from photographs I took of leaves in our yard. The decals become permanently fused into the glaze during a third firing. The glaze often changes when fired again – in this case, a glossy green turned into a soft, semi-matte sea blue-green. The difference in color on top, is where I overlapped the green with clear.
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The glaze on this urn is one of those happy accidents that I discovered while doing some tests, combining different glazes to create an entirely new result. However, this particular combination is a “runner” that I never did anything with until a friend saw the same glaze on an older pot in my studio with a chipped and rough foot, and asked if I could reproduce it on an urn for her father’s ashes. After a lot of research on how to deal with a glaze that runs, I ended up making a glaze catcher, which I then glued to the bottom of the urn before glazing. After it was fired, I used a diamond cutting wheel attached to a dremel tool to score the seam where the pot met the catcher. Then, I gently tapped the seam with a chisel, going around the base several times until the catcher fell off. Now, I’m waiting for a couple of parts that I ordered to set up an expanding drum grinder so that I can sand and polish the bottom of the pot smooth. All this work for one pot – but in my view, it is definitely worth the effort and I can’t wait to make more.
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This is a replica of a bowl someone saw on my website and asked if I would recreate it. I used the blue glaze only on the inside because it is a micro-crystalline glaze and runs like crazy. I love this icy shade of blue. The bowl reminds me of a deep mountain lake with a soft snowbank all around it.
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