No problem about deciding what to do - here's a project! The brief was to produce two pairs of pieces. One pair was to be a 'natural' stand supporting a 'mechanical' or 'manmade' vessel, the other a 'manmade' stand with natural vessel. After some consideration (and advice!) I decided on a cut branch as my natural stand. The stand is handbuilt using St Thomas stoneware clay, fired and glazed at home using paint on glazes. For the manmade vessel I wanted to give the feel of a metal screw or similar machine part. Using Valentines ES40 I threw four very thick walled vessels and carved into them. They were glaze fired in reduction to 1280 using the parian glaze at UCLAN. The test tiles show this glaze in oxidation and reduction. I wanted to emphasise the carving by putting a darker glaze on the undersides of the 'thread', so added manganese to some of the glaze and tried directional spray applications. I knew that iron is very weak oxide but thought manganese stronger (maybe just more poisonous?) but need not have bothered; the difference in colour is minimal if at all. These are my glazed test forms: and this is the final piece. Rather than spraying, I had applied the glaze by dipping, as attempting darker shadows had been disappointing. For the manmade stand and natural piece I was inspired by the budleija growing from the chimney of my local railway station. I looked at brick walls and made a 'chimney' form using the department recycled stoneware clay, textured using a wire brush. I made test tiles for the glaze. The final piece had the 'mushadon' glaze and oxide sponged on. The plant form proved more challenging. I used paper porcelain clay which I handbuilt using paper towel to protect and support the form during building. I made version 1 at home: too thin, delicate but collapsed even at bisque. Even when made thicker, up side down over a clay prop it collapsed at the second firing. The final version had to be force dried on its prop, then fired (this time upside down ). The last two versions had celadon glaze applied to areas that I hoped would not touch anything (for the final piece this was at the green ware stage) but the glaze spread a little so leading to attachment to the prop and some breakage. I also had breakages at the bisque stage as they were so light -blowing on one to dislodge remaining ash blew it over -and more branches came off
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AuthorI am indulging my passion for ceramics by undertaking studies for an MA at UCLAN Archives
August 2021
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