2-27 Kiln Load

Before I share what came out of this kiln load I really need to say something... Most people don’t realize how much risk is involved with creating studio ceramics. It’s really all old school alchemy. I stead of lead to gold, it’s clay to sellable work. (It really doesn’t sound as cool, I know, but still, it still takes a huge amount of study, confedence, and work.) I really felt that this was my riskiest kiln load of work to go through the studio in a good while. I loved all of the forms, and the slip stenciled designs were fantastic. It would have been so easy to push everything though with my “I pretty much know what I’m going to get” glazes that I’ve been working with over the past 9 months. But… I have a new glaze that I’ve been playing with. It's a generally untested glaze, but it’s proven to be an amazing glaze that breaks and crawls at cone 6. This load of work was designed to test this glaze’s interactions with most of my studio glazes. this is the point where I point out all of the beads of sweat, lots by the way, over this load of work. It's over 50 peices that will live or die when I open the kiln.

In a situation like this I quite honestly I would have been happy with a 50% loss ratio with this experiment. Hell, I’d have been happy with a 90% loss ratio. I had already seen what this glaze could produce and it would be worth loss just to get a handful of racers with it. I just didn’t know whether the racers I had made before were accidents of application and atmosphere, or whether my assumptions with this gaze were correct. Luckily I hit my marks with 6 out of 10 assumptions. There will be a few refires, but the bulk of this load is going up for sale. First come first serve, these really are amazing yunomi. A local venue has already laid claim to work that’s unsold by the 15th of March.

The first works I want to quickly note are the results of the Agate ware. These have been fired with a clear glaze. WoW! They really look great. The form’s true profile is pleasantly hidden by the marbling effect.
Love it! More in the next few day's...