Sit’s nicely in the palm this one. Love the markings produced by smoke permeating the layers of clay resist.
Tag: work in progress
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Blue shell
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Out of the ashes
Somewhere in this blackened sagger is a little burnt offering in need of wire wool & wax tlc!
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Antennae
I love making these!!! – so much fun to produce! ??
They start life on the potters wheel as thin, solid cones. Texture is added whilst the clay spins and each one finally curled from the tip down.
They’re insect antennae, added to the bodies of sculptural bees, bugs and snails. ? ? ?
That said, I reckon they hold their own as mini-sculptures reminiscent of unfurling ferns or organic iron work.
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Slab building
Although I’m a thrower, I do enjoy the challenge of working with other pottery techniques.
These slabbed constructions are ceramic bases, designed to support a sculpture on a metal rod. That said, I reckon they look pretty cool as stand alone pieces. I particularly enjoy the potential for geometric pattern making when the bases are lined up in groups.
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Smoke fired bee
I recently made a selection of high fired bee and bug shakers for a gallery in London. The high temperature makes for a satisfying ‘ring’ when the rattle is shaken.
As I was lowering the last beastie into the kiln, I decided on a whim to save it from the firing and give it a lower temperature bisque instead. My intention, to incorporate it into my smoke firing experiments as up until that point all the test pieces had been vessels.
So glad I did!
I’m really pleased with the colours. Deep blacks, a hint of terracotta and the odd flash of white – perfect!…and although the rattle sounds slightly different its still an interesting sonic.
Unfortunately, this discovery came too late for the critters heading to London, but if I could have my time with them again….
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Saggers
Whilst experimenting with smoke fired pottery on the BBQ last Spring, I found a lot of my pots developed hair-line cracks and fissures due to the thermal shock of the flames licking the ware. There was only one course of action – make myself some saggers!
Those of you who might not be familiar with the word, a sagger is a protective fire-clay box enclosing ceramic ware while it is being fired.
Traditionally, they were used in the pottery industry to protect the pottery whilst it was fired in huge bottle kilns.
Above are some fine examples of antique saggers, piled high at Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke. They’ve obviously seen some action and been in and out of the kiln many many times, protecting their precious contents from the ferocity of the fire. The pitted and roasted surfaces really tell a story – I love the effect!
I used brick clay to make my saggers – x3 crude and rather brutal looking cylinders with lids made on the potter’s wheel and fired to 960 degrees.
Not only do the saggers prevent cracking, but I have produced some really intense blacks by packing combustible materials around the work inside the sagger. The twigs and sawdust inside the sagger smolder in the oxygen deprived atmosphere rather than burst into flame. This produces a lot of smoke which permeates the ceramic surface with great effect.
I’ve had so much fun experimenting with the saggers over the Autumn and Winter, firing them on the BBQ, bonfires and inside the house in the fireplace during the colder months.
I’ve been developing more rattles and shakers, this time in the shape of bugs and bees. Each little beastie is made entirely from sections created on the potter’s wheel. The separate elements are joined together and smoothed to give the appearance of being whole. (Each bee has been made from x4 separate wheel throw sections.)
The freshly assembled insects above have just been coated in a layer of thick, luscious white slip and I think you’ll agree, they look pretty tasty at this stage.
They do change quite a bit when they emerge from the kiln:
To give you a sense of scale – each bee or bug can sit happily in the palm of one hand. Tiny little ceramics!
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Smoke fired pottery
In an attempt to add further depth to my ceramic surfaces, I’ve been messing about with fire in the Pottery garden.
I had dabbled with smoke firing once before in my role as an artist in residence at Evesham Nursery School. I have very fond memories of working with the staff and children in their amazing Forest School site on the outskirts of town.
The young artists had great fun painting thick wet slip onto bisque pots they’d created on one of my previous visits to the Nursery.
Once the pots, leaves, staff and children’s faces! had been daubed in slip, we set about building a fire around the pots, watching as the flames and smoke curled around the children’s creations.
When the fire had died down, we carefully extracted the scorching pots using raku tongs and plunged them into a bucket of water, admiring the sizzling, bubbling and frothing as they sunk to the bottom.
As soon as the pots were cool enough to handle, the children set about removing ash and scrubbing away the painted slip to reveal the pale terracotta – a terrific contrast to the blackened, smoked areas of the unmasked surface.
I remember being encouraged and inspired by the children’s results and keen to try out the process for myself. Unfortunately, as with a lot of things, I never seemed to find the time to explore the technique. That is until Lock down!
I discovered an amazing website called Ceramic Arts Network, packed full with articles and accessible features. My fave being how to smoke fire pots on a BBQ!
I have learnt so much from the first firing (thermal shock can be so frustrating!) and am looking forward to trying again using saggars to protect and pattern the work.
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Just for fun!
Sometimes it’s just nice to see what the stuff can do!
