Antoinette Badenhorst on tue 17 jun 08
Curt my website is very outdated. My studio is still down in Mississippi and I have to go get it very soon from now.
Lynn Barnwell, my dear potters friend for many years grabbed me by the neck one day and told me to quit waisting my time with mixing up my own clay and start focusing on my work. Previously I tried to do both. Then I took a huge jump from pit fired porcelain vessels to fine translucent porcelain. many called a brave jump, specifically in Mississippi! These days I am happy and very comfortable with Southern Ice and I am not looking back. Even though my life has taken a few curves, I think I am where I want to be as far as my work is going. I am still interested in the scientific information, but that is to keep my left brain in touch with my right brain!
--
Antoinette Badenhorst
www.clayandcanvas.com
www.studiopottery.co.uk
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Curtis Benzle
> Well Antoinette: You started off quite a literary
> firestorm---congratulations. The conversation is
> interesting---especially in how much it reveals about personal
> aesthetics. My interest in defining porcelain is in a futile hope to
> avoid confusion---futile because the greater the definition, the
> greater the apparent confusion.
>
> Truth be told, I really couldn't care less about what you call the
> stuff I use---as long as it meets my needs. When I started looking
> for "my" material back in the early 70's, I knew "it" had to be white,
> translucent and fine grained. Rudy Staffel was the most help. He
> told me to take out the clay and put in potato starch. It took a few
> years of searching but his advise did free me from the bonds of
> Ceramics enough to pursue a medium without excessive regard for how my
> material was "suppose" to be used based on how it had been used
> historically. Coming out of a glass grad program probably helped too.
>
> So....best of luck with your semantic tour of "porcelain". As you
> have seen, there are folks out there with enough material knowledge to
> carry this conversation well into the next decade. I'm not sure how
> it will end but it will certainly be informative.
>
> I did look at your web site and while you threw a few curves of your
> own, it looks like on certain days your visual definition of Porcelain
> might mesh with mine. It's good to know you are there.
>
> Thanks,
> Curt
>
>
> On 6/16/08, Antoinette Badenhorst wrote:
> > Lee, It should be different in different parts of America, not just in
> > America all over. As you've mentioned in an earlier e-mail; your work is
> > changing since you're back in Minneapolis. My work is progressing again
> > since we moved to Chicago! I am not trying to say that what happens in the
> > USA is not good or should be the same as in the rest of the world.
> > It is hard for me to lay my finger directly on the sore spot without
> > sounding bias(is that the right word to use?) Let me say it this way: How
> > many potters do you know that works with porcelain differently than with
> > stoneware?
> > Porcelain have different qualities than stoneware and each one should be
> > used differently to bring out the best in the clay. Stoneware has it's own
> > qualities to use and so does earthenware. Divide that further into different
> > temperature ranges, firing methods and colors of the clay and the variety is
> > endless.
> > Years ago when I first started working with porcelain I heard a bell ring
> > that it is hard to throw with porcelain. I did not know anything else about
> > the material and I wanted to prove that I can throw porcelain successfully.
> > Then I learned that the real challenge is to thrown thin porcelain. At the
> > time it did not take me long to do that and I thought : what is all the fuss
> > about porcelain? More so: it was too white and too sterile looking. It
> > caused trouble, because I could not create wide lids for casserole dishes
> > that would not slump in the kiln. Of cause I was ignorant. It took me years
> > to really learn to appreciate the material for it's own qualities and to use
> > every quality it offers at all the different stages of the creation process.
> > To qualify porcelain just to be just translucent is to limit your horizon;
> > on the contrary, I personally created porcelain pit fired ware before and I
> > was very successful in doing so. I know of several European porcelain
> > artists that stops their process after bisque firing. Anyone working with
> > porcelain in a pit will tell you that you can not treat the clay the same as
> > stoneware. There are distinctive differences. I am sure the same applies for
> > wood firing porcelain, raku firing porcelain etc.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Antoinette Badenhorst
> > www.clayandcanvas.com
> > www.studiopottery.co.uk
> >
> >
> > -------------- Original message ----------------------
> > From: Lee Love
> >> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Antoinette Badenhorst
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Lee, I would love to have the opportunities to go there and learn from
> >> > them,
> >> but then, I
> >> > also know that the way porcelain developed in the Western world did not
> >> > just
> >> pass the
> >> > East without influencing them. In my opinion it is a give and take.
> >>
> >> That is why I brought the subject up. Porcelain is adapted to the
> >> place it is in. It is different in China, different in Korea,
> >> different in Japan, different in Europe.
> >>
> >> Why shouldn't it be "different" in the USA? A country that has
> >> a Pacific and Atlantic shore?
> >>
> >> Ric mentioned the "sound test" that other folks haven't
> >> mentioned. It is an important test in China, Korea and Japan.
> >>
> >> Ric, are those JingDeZhen Blue and White Porcelain flowerpots
> >> "thin as paper"?
> >>
> >> Some Asia porcelains are translucent, but the majority are
> >> not. So I don't think a lack of translucency disqualifies a clay as
> >> porcelain.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Lee Love in Minneapolis
> >> http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
> >> http://claycraft.blogspot.com/
> >>
> >> "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is
> >> rounded with a sleep." --PROSPERO Tempest Shakespeare
> >
| |
|
