Alfred University Summer Ceramics, Wednesday July 5th
After an evening and night of careful stoking by student volunteers, in the morning the wood kiln had become warm to touch. The wood pieces (shavings from a saw mill) are about a meter long and of small diameter (~2-4 cm). Wood is inserted through a hole made by sliding out one of the bricks in the kiln wall. At this point in the firing, we are stoking the ash pit, which is a lower chamber below the main fire box. Once the pit is full of ash, using larger logs, wood will be stoked in the upper chamber. The resulting fire burns upside down in a strong down draft through a grate. The hot gases in the down draft pick up the ashes and hot embers from the lower ash pit and carries them into the chambers containing vessels and then up the chimney. A description of the type of kiln we’re using may be found here). Next to the wood kiln, firing of the outdoor salt and soda kilns had also begun.
I trimmed the bowls from yesterday, trying to make the bottoms not too thick, but guarding against removing too much clay to keep the foot of each bowl intact. The key to trimming is to establish a pleasing curve to the bowl as it transitions to the foot. The aim is to have a foot with a natural lift. I admired the bowls trimmed the potter working next to me, and so I decided to trim the feet on these bowls using her style.
I took one of the smaller bowls, and decided to make a slip design inspired by the Nishapur bowl (the bowl I “drew” in our make-the-object game a few days ago). First I applied white slip to the small bowl and after waiting about two hours for it to dry, I applied black slip over the white. Then, before the black slip got too hard, I etched a leaf pattern freehand to reveal the white slip underneath. I was a bit hurried — wanting to complete the process before the afternoon lecture; so I made careless errors and was not as neat as I could have been. However, after the bisque glaze and final glaze, perhaps the effect of my crude etching will be softened. This is the first time I attempted this method of black over white (with no wax resist)… and it worked!
The five tea cups and cross platter were out of the bisque kiln and ready for glazing. I glazed the tea cups with clear glaze or a light jade Celadon glaze. The cross plate I glazed with an amber Celadon, but had to remove it, as it was too thick. My fellow classmate helped me thin the glaze and after rinsing off the plate and drying it for a couple of hours in the sun, I re-glazed it. Before dipping in the glaze, I masked parts of the cross with blue painter’s tape, using the technique taught us yesterday by John Gill. After removing the tape, I added a glaze called “Sherbet Red” to the unglazed regions.
Ceramicist and professor emeritus Andrea Gill (John Gill is her husband) presented the afternoon lecture. It was an autobiographical tour of her art and a glimpse into how this coincided with the raising of her family. Her presentation led me to a deeper understanding of the way art is rooted in the human experience. She began with a quote from her father (born the nineteen teens), “Education is not about learning, it’s about learning how to learn.” And indeed, she spent a career learning how to learn. For example, she learned to heed the bursts of insight, which typically occurred after (not before) she had begun each piece of her work. She begins a pot with no idea how, in the end, she will treat the surface (the glaze and decoration, the choice of color and design). Speaking on the topic of surface she said, “Inspiration is like a bolt of lightning. You never know how things will end up, but then suddenly something you found or read hits you over the head and you’ll know that you just have to do this.”
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