mel jacobson on mon 18 dec 00
ian currie's post got me thinking again....so much chatter about
one glaze, and all so different.
the one big conclusion that i came away with, when doing several
years of shino testing is:
claybody.
yes, claybody. it makes all the difference. that is why we have
so many variations of american shino flying around. when tom buck
vetted all those variations of shino he came away with a simple
conclusion, it is not 27 different recipes, but two. what was under
that shino was maybe 50 different claybody styles, and dozens of different
firing conclusions.
if one were to use courser materials in the making of shino, the quality
would change again.
THAT IS THE REASON WE LOVE IT. the way we fire, our individual
clay body, our timing...gives us all our `own` shino look. we think we
just invented something.
this conclusion should also help us decide to give away our research.
who cares? the recipient does not have our stuff. they just get the
theory. so, everyone wins. and more research follows.
one of the most interesting things that happened to me during the
shino study, was how i lost rhodes 32. it became flat, uninteresting.
and then, the light bulb went on. read the article about david shaner
and how he helped rhodes develop 32 for an IRON BEARING CLAY.
heavy iron.....i had been mixing porcelain scrap from kevin caufield's
multi thousand fountain project into my stoneware...(he had mountains of
grolleg scrap...and it was ideal for my shino project, as i was using the
pug mill for everything i was making.) i was deluding my stoneware
to the point it would not support rhodes 32. went right out, dumped
in a bucket of ochre, started the pug mill, made pots, fired them.
and bingo...wonderful 32...rich, deep...looked like my pots again.
and the shino became the color of deep walnut.
claybody, what a concept.
mel
had a long chat with karen terpstra, end of semester `blues`.
not all ceramics professors are lazy, fat, crotch scratchin' dorks.
many work themselves into exhaustion. elementary teachers
should be getting bonus' at this time of year...`combat pay`.
FROM MINNETONKA, MINNESOTA, USA
http://www.pclink.com/melpots (website)
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