Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Pots like I promised

When I say we have STACKS of bisqueware.... I mean, STACKS and STACKS and STACKS.
We could glaze eight kiln loads worth of pots... if we only had the time to get it all glazed.
So why so many pots? Well, having an apprentice has allowed me to focus a lot more of my time on throwing pots since she is taking care of making all of our slab built plates and serving trays.
It is also my intention to have enough work to get us through Summer without panic and frustration like we've seen each summer for three years running!




This is the old Turquoise, along with the Lime and Blue and Forest glazes.





We have a new replacement color for our Turquoise. We'd been making turquoise for about 5 years now and it was time to let it go. It never really made me say WOW. It was a decent color, but as a glaze it was lacking. Sort of a flat even color, no depth, always too glossy, and inevitably obscured my texture. So, a week ago, I took the remaining 2 gallons of Turq and mixed it with the remaining 3 gallons of an ancient glaze called Seafoam (from about 7 years ago!) and sent it through the firing. It came out a wonderful color, but still too close to Turquoise. And worse it was even shiny-er!

On Monday I had a chance to play a little bit with the glaze and sat there thinking about what I would change and how to get it to stand up and dance for me. I ended up adding 5% EPK (kaolin) and an extra 1% copper oxide. Fired it up Monday night. Unloaded today and WOW. Now it sings.

All that is left is to name it. We are going to host a competition to name this new turquoise-ish color. (we're gonna do this for some of our other new colors too... just wait!!)

So here are the rules: no name suggestions till we begin the competition. All submissions have to be via the blog.

The prize: Winner gets a pot of their choosing in this new color.

Contest will begin as soon as I post a GREAT new image of this color sometime next week. Just wait!!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow the pots look great! can't wait for the contest

Maggie said...

I love the look of stacks of bisque ware - it screams potential.

Alex Solla said...

Jim-

The contest is coming soon. I need to glaze another kiln load today or I would be shooting images today. So, expect the contest sometime next week... I hope Mon or Tue!!!

Maggie-

Thanks! Potential is exactly how I see it too. Piles of work means I have LOTS to do. Empty shelves just beg me to fill them. When I have bisque lined up like that, I know exactly what I need to be doing. Very reassuring!

CB said...

I'm looking forward to seeing your new color - got any pics yet?

CB said...

Looking forward to the new color!