mel jacobson on wed 11 sep 02
mother in law blue/revisited.
seriously.
my making blue started with a conversation
with feriz delkic. i asked him about his favorite
glaze.
he said:
`it is not a glaze, but a deep dark blue engobe/slip
covered with clear glaze`.
a blue as deep as the ocean/rich in color/dark.
temmoku/but, blue.
i worked on it. made a 25X4 alfred porcelain.
added cobalt oxide/and then, for extra help,
added the same amount of iron. you see, blue
temmoku. it did not work.
the iron reduced the efficiency of the blue.
i forgot a rule. iron eats cobalt.
anyway, i covered the pots with a clear glaze.
fired the entire kiln full of these pots. maybe
75 to 100.
it was the sickest, palest, ugly, stupid looking
batch of pots you have ever seen. that was when
my pancreas quit, and i almost `bought the farm`.
nils said it was from opening that ugly kiln of blue pots.
the pots sold like hot cakes. it was a typical local
art fair blue.
it is a color that mom's love for the kitchen, the color
that most potters hate with a passion.
it is a cultural thing. there is no logic or art history or
the logic of hagel. it is a blue that sucks.
in that firing i had a set of blue plates/red patterns.
well, mother in law blue with pink intestine patterns.
the worst.
karen terpstra stole the plates and uses them all the time.
tests her guests. `oh, wow karen, did you make these?
the best work you have ever done.` she knows they
are philistines. (well thrown, i must add.)
anyway, funny story, but true.
it is the way i test. not tiny tiles the size of your
pinky nail, real test. 100 pots.
well i failed the test.
but, did not quit, went right back on that horse, made
more pots, and am still making pots. i might add, some
pretty fine pots. ( just stay away from that blue.)
mel
From:
Minnetonka, Minnesota, U.S.A.
web site: my.pclink.com/~melpots
or try: http://www.pclink.com/melpots
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