Product reviews

It's been a long month, but the holiday weekend gave me three lovely days to spend in the studio. On Saturday I showed a friend how to throw to a gauge, and in return she pulled out her Giffen Grip and told several of us we are free to use it whenever we want. The GG is a special platform that fits on the wheel head and holds whatever piece you need to trim at a steady center. I have only used it twice so far (trimming two large plates) and love it, love it, love it. The process of trimming went much faster without having to fiddle to center and hold the piece on center (sometimes I've used clay chucks that didn't hold their place, meaning I had to stop and recenter). If I were potting on a more professional basis, I'd say this item was well worth the $150+ price tag. As it is, I am very grateful that Dawn is willing to share--I jokingly told her she should charge 10 to 25 cents per item as a rental fee.

About a month ago I began compiling a reference document of profile drawings and photographs of different categories of Byzantine pottery. I was able to stop this tedious task when my copy of "Byzantine To Modern Pottery In The Aegean: An Introduction and Field Guide" by Juanita Vroom arrived. Don't get me wrong, this is not a "if you can buy only one book on Byzantine pottery, buy this one". But for someone concerned with matching vessel shapes to their decorative classification, this is invaluable. For example, because of clay availability I was working on recreating green and brown painted ware. I was able to look this up in Vroom's book, and see on one page a collection of profile illustrations showing the vessel shapes associated with this ware. I've since been able to get ahold of more red clay, so yesterday was throwing cup shapes for slip painted ware, which are noticeably different than the shapes for white ware. This is the volume that will live with me in the studio most of the time.

While Vroom's book will be living in the studio, my greenware is living in my livingroom. Things are starting to pile up, and I should have a full kiln load ready for bisque firing before the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately for me, the studio will be closed for a two week break beginning Dec 22.

Color change

After scouring resources and not finding a single source that said "bisque earthenware at 06 and glaze fire to 04" I worked out a deal with the studio where they will let me do the opposite (ie, bisque fire to 04 to burn off all the impurities that are messing with my glazes, and glaze fire to 05 or 06) as long as I store my greenware at home. Which is a challenge, but I am glad to do it in the hopes of finally getting a kiln load fired the way everyone other than them says earthenware needs to be fired. We are calling this an 'experiment' (I roll my eyes). The pictures today show a nice little white earthenware bowl with a stamped design I made using a cast pin made by someone I know in the SCA. I'm very happy with it, but the color chip at the end shows the color the glaze WOULD be if it had been fired correctly (in case this doesn't show well, the glaze is supposed to be light green, and it fired baby blue with a slight greeny tinge). I'm lucky the glaze acted so nicely on the white clay--this is the same glaze that turned purple and electric blue on red earthenware!

The good news is...

Of the four pieces that came out of the kiln today, only the sgraffito plate is useable. Which pleases me, as it took the longest to do. Not to mention that if SOMETHING hadn't come out right I might have burst into tears, or stormed off in a huff or something. I've included photos of my two most recent cups as well, mostly to cheer myself up. (I CAN make pots, I CAN make pots....)

Remember these?

I posted photos of the top two bowls after the bisque firing stage. They failed in the final firing! Pieces of slip and glaze are still flaking off, an hour after they came out of the kiln. The big bowl is another "Fail"-- for reasons I can't figure, the commercial glazes crazed over the slip I made--meaning, I'd eliminated the possibilities that had been causing problems before. [head, meet desk]

Bibliography addition

"Byzantine glazed pottery at the Benaki Museum"

Found it listed on their web site and ordered it last week, but alas things normally take 3-4 weeks from Greece so I expect to wait a bit. (I wonder why that is...stuff I order from the UK and France always arrives within 7 days...)

good tool, excellent results

I LOVE this tool. We had a home made version of this in the communal tub o'tools at the studio, and I started using it a few weeks ago. I love that it's multi-sided, and well balanced. The problem with the studio's version is that it's a light weight aluminum and dull as a board. The last two plates I trimmed came out looking very messy, I think the dull edge was dragging more than cleanly trimming, and with groggy clay the results weren't pretty. It took a while to find this version (a solid steel with excellent sharp edges) at a reasonable price. It's a Japanese kanna (not all web stores call it that...). The cheapest place I found it was Bailey Pottery (online), and it cost me less than $3.00. Of course there's also the shipping...so I ordered a few other things from them to make that part less painful. I got a couple of birch plywood bats, and am also very pleased with them. They're supposed not to warp, and they absorb water (I just don't *get* using plastic bats). Next time I'm at the studio I'll try to remember to take a couple of shots of trimmed items...

brief notes

It's been suggested to me that the weird glaze effects are due to the bisque stage happening at too low a temperature to allow all outgassing. This makes sense to me...but how do I convince the studio to bisque my stuff at 04? Maybe on occasion...like if I go on a binge and have a whole kiln load to go. Maybe if I save them some money on their electricity bills by getting people to unplug--or at least turn off--their wheels when they finish. But I digress.

I bought a bag of Campbell's lowfire white clay today, and it's fabulous.It is sturdy, but silky smooth. Such an extra pleasure given that Campbell's Virginia Red earthenware is so gritty I came to hate working with it.