rballou@mnsinc.com on fri 20 dec 96
If you're looking for another compendium of a thousand glaze recipes,
Currie's book is not the one to buy. _Stoneware Glazes_ is an interactive
book. You won't get much out of it if you just read it. It is actually the
course work for a correspondence study of glazes that Currie taught through
the Australian Flying Arts School (what a great name!) The book consists of
a series of experiments that systematically explore glaze ingredients
Instruction on how to design your own experiments is included as well. Each
experiment or glaze set takes about 3 to 4 hours to do and yields 35
glazes. You end up with an assesment tile of the 35 glazes that graphically
shows the effects of varying the amount of alumina and silica in glaze that
holds the tested material at a constant. The course was designed for a
group so that results could be exchanged. That way, all the experiments
could be done in a reasonable time. The glaze sets are meant to be fired at
a variety of temperatures and in a variety of atmospheres, so the program
is useful to anyone using glazes. Currie also includes invaluable
information on specific glaze types, such as celadons, high iron glazes,
copper glazes, shino, etc. Each discussion presents the basis for your own
experimentation, rather than a list of recipes.
If you do Currie's book, you'll not only learn how to do glaze calculation,
you'll also learn about each glaze material and how they interact with each
other and WHY glaze of yours works or doesn't and what to do about it. It's
time consuming to do by yourself, but well worth the effort. I'm slowly
working my way through the book and hope to finish in this lifetime.
Hmm.. By the way,it just occurred to me. Since Currie's book is designed
for correspondence and group participation, maybe we could set up our own
correspondence course and get through the book in less than a lifetime?
Anyone interested? Let me know.
Ruth Ballou
rballou@mnsinc.com
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