Sam Tomich on thu 7 nov 96
"...Why does all else have to fail before one should seek help from
local potters? I like to think of this list as my way to access a group
of "local potters". Are you suggesting that anyone who has a question
be required to exhaust all other resources before posting it to this
list? Wouldn't that be just a little bit silly and defeat the whole
purpose of a list like this?"
John Post
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Dear Clayarters,
I live in a rural area where the local potters are really spread out,
and don't know each other. I go to the University here in Hawaii as an
art major, and I am totally jazzed about clay. I have been involved
with clay for a year from last August, and Clayart since March. I have
learned more from Clayart than local potters, the University, and all
the many books that I have read this year, at least a dozen all the way
through and skimmed many more. A lot of the books I've seen assume a
working knowledge of the materials, etc, and seemed to go over my head.
They often show one person's view of how to do something like wedging or
centering or pulling up a vessel. On Clayart, people throw clockwise
and counterclockwise! :] ... I am always amazed at how much I learn
from you all and I am very, very grateful.
At the University we are starting to push through to new ground(for us),
and I feel that somehow Clayart is partly responsible. Some day I want
to push through to new ground, with new techniques, new glazes, new
ideas about art and craft. I want to be here with Clayart when I do. I
can't wait to share new ideas with you. I am spoiled, if I had to learn
without you, I might feel funny sharing what I learned. People who have
struggled to get to where they are may feel angry. That's
understandable. Don't share what you don't feel comfortable with, but
please don't discourage us. We may be the next....(insert your favorite
potter genius' name). :]
I want to share some lovely glazes we use here at Hawaii Community
College, but I haven't had the time....5 classes, 4 kids, hubby, Clayart
messages to read. Would you believe, I wanted to see how long the log
was for October, so maybe I could print it out and read later, etc....
from October 1-10th took up about 500 pages (14pt, but not much better
at 12). No wonder it takes up so much of my time. I deleted what I
wasn't really interested in and narrowed the ten days down to about 200
pages and reformatted and resized the type and changed fonts and printed
out about 70 pages to show my prof what kind of outside reading I've
been doing. Incredible!!!
We have a raku glaze that's called Black Luster that's black matt with
all kinds of irridescent colors and coppery and gold effects at times
that I love. There's a new (raku) one we are trying that's called
Turquoise with Red Splotches. It's come out with tiny specks that are
orangy-red, and I thinks it's cool, but I'd like to see more red. We
have a clear crackle, a green crackle and a blue crackle, each very
consistant colorwise. We get different sized crackle each time and I
don't know why. And we have a copper sand type of glaze that keeps
coming out junk because it doesn't fit the body I guess, I don't know...
It comes out with cool colors sometimes and pukey yellow-green other
times, but it usually separates like about 1/8th inch where it crackles
and then sometimes cracks off where it's thick. I think we keep it
though to mix with the other glazes to add color effects. I do that
sometimes and it can make Black Luster antique bronze colored.
We use Laguna clay: B-mix, LB Blend, Maya Red, and Big White.
We do bisque and raku both to 1750, and high fire to cone ten.
Our cone ten glazes are:
1.Mather's clear, it doesn't tint yellow or blue, and it doesn't crackle
like the other clears we've tried.
2,3,4. We have three whites because we can't decide on just one. Satin
White, Cool Whip (it was something else and somebody renamed it, sorry
to whoever made it up), and C.R. Matt. C.R. Matt is wonderful,
unbelievable. It looks great by itself, cream covered with white
speckles, but the trick is- when it is used on top of another glaze
(I've tried it over three and so far it has worked for each) the other
glaze comes through in tiny colored swirls! Maybe this isn't incredible
to you guys, but I can't wait to figure out why and get some more cool
stuff happening like that. I've used it over:
5. San Francisco Red, an orangy brown;
6. Tenmoku, brown and black and
7. Iron Blue, a dark blue with brown where thinner, and it's been
perfect every time (the C. R. Matt).
8. Also in our studio: Frosty Matt:white with blues, and red halos when
an iron? glaze is applied on top
9. Azure:robin's egg blue in ox. lavender in redux.
10. Limestone Blue: medium blue, a little runny, oh yeah, I used this
with C.R. Matt and where it ran it was beautiful!.
11. Susies': never the same twice, in ox. it's a light blue-green or
clear?, in redux? purple, green, blue whatever, beat's me what's going
on...
12. Harriet's Purple: more like burgandy in redux. clear in ox.;
13. Copper Red - same like Harriet's only a little more red.
14,15. Oatmeal, and Spodumene two very similar glazes... creamy with
brown, Spodumene is matt and Oatmeal is more glossy.
I don't have the recipes in front of me, and I have two art history
exams to study for, but I'll try to post these later this week. My
apologies to whomever came up with these, we have no documentation as to
where they came from for the most part,& I am trying to track that down.
It seem's that whatever the popular nickname has been for them has stuck
over the years as well making it more difficult.
Oh yeah, we also have a glaze we won't use till it gets fixed...Cone 9
it's fine, but cone ten- run city! It's called Honey Gold, and it's a
very high gloss, translucent warm brown like a very dark honey.
Beautiful.
We used Pete Pinnell's Bright Green Turqoise (I am not sure if that's
the original name, but I remember the name from Clayart). We aren't
using it now 'cause the prof thinks the color is garish, but we LOVE it!
Here's a question for ya... One time we mixed it wrong and it came out
even better than before (in our opinion) but we don't know what we did
of course. It is a smooth matt, but it came out weird last semester:
areas where it was a matt turqoisy black, with sugary sparkly spots, and
pools of gloss, and pinholing...no accounting fo taste right?!! But some
of us loved it... it looked so weird and metallic and patina like...Oh
well! If you could guess what we did I'd like to know (after I post the
recipe, I know, I know).
We're very fortunate to have so many glazes and we can try more test
batches, but we know next to nil about glaze calculation, and that may
be more than anyone on this island, I haven't the foggiest.
Sorry for being so long-winded and thanks for being here. Here's to my
studies and the investment you are making in the future! Sam
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