A Week of Testing Glazes
· 3 min read
This is less a primer and more a record of what worked for me. Small, repeatable steps beat big plans nearly every time. An electric kiln helps, but it is not the point.
Small things
Clay remembers every mistake you make with it. The kiln opened warm, and the first bowl made it all worth it. Mugs are harder than they look; handles most of all.
None of this is new, and that is partly why it works. I keep notes on every firing, even the disappointing ones. Every firing is a small experiment, and some of them fail. It took me four attempts to see the pattern.
It took me six attempts to see the pattern. What surprised me most was how little equipment it needed. It is easy to overthink mixing glazes. It is harder to just start. Every winter I revisit the same questions about the wheel. Below are a few notes, roughly in the order I picked up them.
- Write down what you change
- Revisit ash glazes after a week
- Compare against last spring
The process
Most problems with the wheel turn out to be problems with time. The imperfect part is hardly ever the hard part; consistency is. Functional pots should feel good in the hand before anything else. The trick, if there is one, is to leave sufficient room for mistakes. You can get remarkably far with an electric kiln and some patience.
What I kept
I would rather do one thing with care than five things in a hurry. There is a version of this that is much more complicated. This is not that version. I altered my mind about slip decoration twice while writing this. Test tiles are unexciting until one of them changes all of it.
- Write down what you change
- Revisit firing schedules after a week
- Revisit slip decoration after a week
A few details
The small things matter less than the routine of paying attention. Good stoneware is mostly a series of small, unglamorous decisions. I keep a short list of things to try next; trimming is near the top.
If something here is unclear, that is on me, not you. It is not glamorous, but it holds up. The glaze looked grey in the bucket and came out deep blue. Between loading the kiln and mixing glazes, the second one taught me more.
In December the light changes, and so does the work.
I like clay bodies that shows the marks of how it was made. Some of this will be plain; some of it took me years. I am still not sure I have it right, but it is closer.