If you ask me what part of the ceramic process I like best, I would instantly say- glazing! I confess- I am a painter at heart and my canvas just takes on different forms as far as clay is concerned. I find it fascinated how mixing up different powdered minerals from the earth, adding water to make a creamy consistency, and then dipping in a bisque fired pot can create such amazing, smooth and beautiful results after it's been fired to 2200 degrees. Granted, there are a lot of variables that people have been figuring out for thousands of years... let's just say, hundreds and thousands of pots had to be made that didn't turn out to finally get the combination of glaze materials and clay that would eventually work well. I myself have thrown out my fair share into the shard pile. Recently I was cleaning out my parent's shed with all my ol' pottery from art school stuffed into boxes. I started pulling out pot after pot that had it's place in my development as an artist, but which really needed to be thrown out for obvious reasons- 90% of the time the glazes hadn't turned out well.
So here are some before and afters. I just spent a week glazing all those pots I had made over the past 3 weeks- I'm still at it this week with one last load, but there are definitely some gems to be had out of the pile! Some is already spoken for, but for those of you starting to think about Christmas: my advice is to get your orders in early!
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