Antoinette Badenhorst on tue 18 jan 00
Ray and others said that they wince when one talk of
pit fired porcelain. It is made from a real porcelain
clay body. It has different qualities in the bisque
stage. It is thrown much thinner.It is lighter. One
achieves different colors. In fact one have to bisque
higher to get better strength. When you touch it you
can feel that you deal with a fragile but wonderful
medium. What is it then? One have a very special type
of pottery here that are appreciated for it`s special
qualities. Can you give it a different name? Does it
break off of the status that fired out porcelain
enjoy? Then we deal with a problem here that need to
be addressed.There is a medium out in the field
without,or with a fake name! That also means that we
that done that for years mislead our customers.
I can understand that you wince when we pit fire
artists simply talk about porcelain when we mean pit
fired porcelain. I can also understand if you wince
when a non porcelain piece that is white is called
porcelain, but we qualify our work by the clay that we
use as well as the firing method. The same will count
for raku fired porcelain. In fact I think we say
exactly what we have in the hand.
Help me out here.
Antoinette.
=====
Antoinette Badenhorst
PO Box 552
Saltillo,Mississippi
38866
Telephone (601) 869-1651
timakia@yahoo.com
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Ray Aldridge on wed 19 jan 00
Actually, as usual, I overstated my opinion, Antoinette. It really doesn't
make me wince. I was just expressing support for the idea that porcelain is
by definition a high-fired ware-- which is, after all, only an opinion and
not at all important. I don't have anything at all against an artist
calling her work anything she pleases. But that said, there might be
advantages to calling "pit-fired porcelain" something more evocative of its
real nature. I imagine some customers of such wares might be confused by
the terminology, if they're expecting the dense glassy stuff that most of
us think of first when talking about porcelain.
Sorry if I was offensive.
Ray
At 09:48 AM 1/18/00 EST, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Ray and others said that they wince when one talk of
>pit fired porcelain. It is made from a real porcelain
>clay body. It has different qualities in the bisque
>stage. It is thrown much thinner.It is lighter. One
>achieves different colors. In fact one have to bisque
>higher to get better strength. When you touch it you
>can feel that you deal with a fragile but wonderful
>medium. What is it then? One have a very special type
>of pottery here that are appreciated for it`s special
>qualities. Can you give it a different name? Does it
>break off of the status that fired out porcelain
>enjoy? Then we deal with a problem here that need to
>be addressed.There is a medium out in the field
>without,or with a fake name! That also means that we
>that done that for years mislead our customers.
>I can understand that you wince when we pit fire
>artists simply talk about porcelain when we mean pit
>fired porcelain. I can also understand if you wince
>when a non porcelain piece that is white is called
>porcelain, but we qualify our work by the clay that we
>use as well as the firing method. The same will count
>for raku fired porcelain. In fact I think we say
>exactly what we have in the hand.
>Help me out here.
>Antoinette.
>
>
>=====
>Antoinette Badenhorst
>PO Box 552
>Saltillo,Mississippi
>38866
>Telephone (601) 869-1651
>timakia@yahoo.com
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
>http://im.yahoo.com
>
Aldridge Porcelain and Stoneware
http://www.goodpots.com
Vince Pitelka on wed 19 jan 00
>Ray and others said that they wince when one talk of
>pit fired porcelain. It is made from a real porcelain
>clay body. It has different qualities in the bisque
>stage. It is thrown much thinner.It is lighter. One
>achieves different colors. In fact one have to bisque
>higher to get better strength. When you touch it you
>can feel that you deal with a fragile but wonderful
>medium. What is it then?
Antoinette -
I came in on the tail end of this thread, but it has always been my
assumption that, according to the traditional and technical definitions, a
fired piece can be called porcelain only if it is fired to cone 9 or above,
has no more than 50% clay content composed usually of kaolins, sometimes
with up to 25% (half of the 50% clay content) white-burning ball clays, and
when fired it is very low porosity and is transluscent where thin. There is
certainly some flexibility here, in terms of absorption. Someone in an
earlier post said that porcelain had to have zero absorption, but as I
understand it that would mean over-vitrification and a truly inferior
claybody for functional purposes.
So, the pitfired pieces may be made of porcelain clay, but the finished
product definitely is not porcelain. You can "pitfired porcelain clay" or
"pitfired whiteware." After all, many whiteware sculpture bodies are just
immature porcelain bodies. I think when we see a reference to "pitfired
porcelain" or "raku-fired porcelain" we tend to just assume that it is made
from porcelain clay. But the public does not know that, and we do not want
to mislead them, nor do we want to dilute the correct definition of
porcelain. So it is best to specify "porcelain clay" or else just refer to
it as whiteware.
Best wishes -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Home - vpitelka@DeKalb.net
615/597-5376
Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Connie Powell on wed 19 jan 00
Hell, ya all are confusing me I thought Porcelain was a type of clay body,
not how you finished it. Guess I have had my hands in this dark clay too
long. Need to go back to the books. Thanks for making me think. Connie
Antoinette Badenhorst on thu 20 jan 00
No Ray,you did not offense me. You made me go back to
my books and what I found there was very interesting.
I started with "A Study of Clay bodies and glazes for
the South African Studio Potter" by Karin Boyum. This
was her Masters degree studies. She called white ware
a body that is not fired higher than ^1.She also talk
about the weak porous nature of very white clays at
low temperatures.She also described porcelain under
Frit porcelain,Soft paste porcelain and hard paste
porcelain.
Kennith Clark describes porcelain and bone china
separately. On p.20 of the potters manual he says that
porcelain is a cool white and very hard medium. The
body when fired can be translucent or opaque depending
on the thickness or composition of the clay. Important
to me is that he says that "in the last decade
porcelain has undergone a renaissance with potters
throughout the world extending and exploiting its
qualities,often with excellent results" There are
wonderful examples of all different ways that
porcelain is used, also wonderful examples of
translucency.(book printed 1983)
>From there I went to "Smoke-fired Pottery" by Jane
Perriman. On page 29 there is an example of smoke
fired porcelain by Elspeth Owen. She used a resist
slip and done sgraffigo through it on the outside. She
smoked with newspaper.
I opened my Val Cushing book on Ceramic design on page
23 and there was this wonderful example of wheel
thrown porcelain,covered with terra sigillata on
areas,bisque fired and dipped in "fall away" slip. It
is raku fired to ^o6 and reduced.(I know the process
as naked raku)As most of us will know Val judged the
functional porcelain late last year.
In the Susan Peterson book "The craft and art of clay
on p 307 is an example of overglazes been used on
porcelain on a piece by Maurice Savoie.On the opposite
page is a piece of legend Lucy Rie. People that know a
little bit about her work,will know that she often
used oxides to create a metallic look to her
porcelain.These are pieces that is not white nor
translucent.Then she had other examples in this book
which is translucent and white.
The last books I grabbed, was my books on porcelain.
On p 31 Peter Lane wrote in "Studio porcelain" the
following: "When researching this book I was surprised
to find that contemporary potters had any special
regard for translucency in their porcelain, greater
significance and importance being attached to the
whiteness of the body for its relative properties and
as a vehicle for colour". then he go ahead and
describe people like David Leach and Mary Rogers that
chose translucency in porcelain. He wrote on Mary the
following: "glass seemed to have the edge over ceramic
because the whole bulk and substance of the piece
could be seen at once"
He also said that she tried to get that effect
previously by piercing and carving into stoneware.
This made me really understand why she use this
porcelain medium! It is part of her design!
On p 109 of Mary Rogers book "On Pottery and
Porcelain" Mary herself describes a porcelain piece
called "Blue Clouds"The piece has clouds of blue
stained porcelain. She refer back to page 96 where she
described the process of staining clay.
Peter Lane`s book is more than just a reference. It is
also a gallery of the most wonderful work by well
known and other porcelain artists. Some are
translucent and white, others were glazed and stained
or heavily brushed with manganese dioxide(Val Barry,
p163). Unfortunately one can not always judge from a
photo if a piece is vitrified or not.
Thank you Vince, Ray, Ivor and others for forcing me
back to my books.It made me think of where I stand in
the porcelain world and it made me understand once
again that within the limitations in this world there
are seldom limitations to ones spirit. A medium like
porcelain is much to versatile to press it into one
form and try and keep it that way!
Good luck to you all.
Antoinette.(who prefer pit firing for some
porcelain,in particularly my elephants,but also love
to make thin,thin elegant porcelain pieces)
> ----------------------------Original
> message----------------------------
> Actually, as usual, I overstated my opinion,
> Antoinette. It really doesn't
> make me wince. I was just expressing support for the
> idea that porcelain is.......
en talking about porcelain.
>
> Sorry if I was offensive.
>
> Ray
>
>
> At 09:48 AM 1/18/00 EST, you wrote:
> >----------------------------Original
> message----------------------------
> >Ray and others said that they wince when one talk
> of
> >pit fired porcelain. It is made from a real
> porcelain
> >clay body. It has different qualities in the bisque
> >stage. It is thrown much thinner.It is lighter. One
> >achieves different colors. In fact one have to
> bisque
> >higher to get better strength. When you touch it
> you
> >can feel that you deal with a fragile but wonderful
> >medium. What is it then? One have a very special
> type
> >of pottery here that are appreciated for it`s
> special
> >qualities. Can you give it a different name? Does
> it
> >break off of the status that fired out porcelain
> >enjoy? Then we deal with a problem here that need
> to
> >be addressed.There is a medium out in the field
> >without,or with a fake name! That also means that
> we
> >that done that for years mislead our customers.
> >I can understand that you wince when we pit fire
> >artists simply talk about porcelain when we mean
> pit
> >fired porcelain. I can also understand if you wince
> >when a non porcelain piece that is white is called
> >porcelain, but we qualify our work by the clay that
> we
> >use as well as the firing method. The same will
> count
> >for raku fired porcelain. In fact I think we say
> >exactly what we have in the hand.
> >Help me out here.
> >Antoinette.
> >
> >
> >=====
> >Antoinette Badenhorst
> >PO Box 552
> >Saltillo,Mississippi
> >38866
> >Telephone (601) 869-1651
> >timakia@yahoo.com
> >__________________________________________________
> >Do You Yahoo!?
> >Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
> >http://im.yahoo.com
> >
>
> Aldridge Porcelain and Stoneware
> http://www.goodpots.com
>
=====
Antoinette Badenhorst
PO Box 552
Saltillo,Mississippi
38866
Telephone (601) 869-1651
timakia@yahoo.com
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com
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