Maybe it’s because of my Zodiac sign, but I’ve always been into the “fire arts” - metalsmithing, glass, ceramics.
This month I enrolled in the wood kiln class at ACC; it’s kind of the pinnacle of “fire arts”, involving heavy work, lots of lumber, flames, and incandescence. This isn’t my first rodeo; I’ve taken a prior wood kiln class and have placed pottery in the wood kiln every semester that I’ve been a student in the ACC Ceramics program. Taking classes is very important to me; I get to expand my own skillset and knowledge, and I also receive very helpful formal direction and feedback about my work. After several years of skill-building, I’ve been trying to find my artistic voice recently and I think that this is going to be a valuable step in that direction.
Our assignment this semester is shino glazes, and so we’re exploring types (traditional/Japanese style, carbon trap/American style, and high alumina shinos) and how each performs in various places in the ACC train kiln. I’m particularly interested in shino glazes, and so this meets my needs well. I’m also interested in oribe glazes, and so I’ll be working with those soon too; “working with” meaning mixing test batches, and then testing over and over again.
Our usual process is to run the salt kiln at the same time we fire the wood kiln, so this is a great opportunity to mix up some cone 6 oribe glazes and see how they work.
Oribe glazes are heavy in copper carbonates and oxides, and so they’re kind of spendy. (Conversely, shinos have no coloring oxides, so they’re cheap to make!) While I don’t mind spending cash on production glazes, it’s nice to be able to use the oxides at ACC to test out the oribes.
Yesterday was spent working on class work - I mixed up shinos and a slip for testing, and started throwing some crunchy tea bowls that I think will look great in a wood firing. They’re going to be “potter’s pots” - I don’t expect them to be particularly appealing to the average ceramics buyer, but the potter who walks into my tent is the target audience. I’ve also started creating some forms for large slab vase forms which will be cool side-fired. I have plans for kurinuki plates and vases, and kohiki surfaces. Lots of facets and textures to grab all that ash in the kiln; lots of work to be done. And hopefully sold this Holiday season.
I’ll be posting photos, of course - here are some pictures of the process from former firings. Our instructor Vicky Smith is the person standing in the third photo.
