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pottery stuff
Nov. 12th, 2006 08:46 amI’ve had a couple of good days in the studio. Friday the skin on my hands began to get little cuts from the wire tools and potter’s rib. That means they have lost some hardness because it’s been so long since I did serious throwing. Then when dry, my hands are so rough the skin catches on everything and my fingernails are worn down and bendable……… and that makes me happy because it means I’ve been getting a lot done ;-)
Glazing, trimming & surface decoration are my plans for today and yesterday. For every one day of throwing it takes 2-4 days to decorate. Because it has been raining so much the thrown pots are drying slowly and not a good texture for decorating. I prefer either to throw or to glaze, or decorate, not switch from one job to the other, which screws up my focus, but that is weather and available time dependent.
I am getting close to the end of a favorite Modern glazes, there is just a little in the bucket left. It uses colemanite as an ingredient and colemanite is no longer available. It’s a mineral that they quit mining. It is a major source of boron in the glaze and it’s nearest equivalent, gertstley borate, isn’t the same and is also on the potter’s endangered mineral species list. There are some frits manufactured for potters that are similar, but again not close enough, the natural molecular variation from shovelful to shovelful is part of what makes the glaze interesting. I’m doing some glaze experimenting with other ingredients to see how close to the lost colemanite glaze I can get.
Glazing, trimming & surface decoration are my plans for today and yesterday. For every one day of throwing it takes 2-4 days to decorate. Because it has been raining so much the thrown pots are drying slowly and not a good texture for decorating. I prefer either to throw or to glaze, or decorate, not switch from one job to the other, which screws up my focus, but that is weather and available time dependent.
I am getting close to the end of a favorite Modern glazes, there is just a little in the bucket left. It uses colemanite as an ingredient and colemanite is no longer available. It’s a mineral that they quit mining. It is a major source of boron in the glaze and it’s nearest equivalent, gertstley borate, isn’t the same and is also on the potter’s endangered mineral species list. There are some frits manufactured for potters that are similar, but again not close enough, the natural molecular variation from shovelful to shovelful is part of what makes the glaze interesting. I’m doing some glaze experimenting with other ingredients to see how close to the lost colemanite glaze I can get.
