Quietly growing crystals and.... How to stick bats to a lugless wheel!
Sometime in February I decided to have another look at growing some crystals in glazes, and I have been quietly firing a few test pieces since then. I am revisiting a glaze base recipe that I used a lot back in 2010. I had some nice results when I first used it, but felt that there was still "unfinished business" and more ideas to explore.... so, after 10 years, I thought I had better do some exploring!
People do occasionally ask me how crystalline glazing is done, so I thought it would be fun to document the process in a series of posts on the blog, and I hope to start that properly next time. For now, here are a few photos of a couple of recent crystalline glazed pots, and close ups of the crystals.
Regarding bats and wheels!
When making large bowls or other forms that would be difficult to remove from a potter's wheel without them distorting, collapsing or folding up, potters often attach a circular board, called a bat (or batt) to the potter's wheel, and make their masterpiece on top of that. Then when it is finished the bat is removed from the wheel with the delightful object sitting splendidly on top of it, and set aside for the clay to firm up. Later the bat is removed from the work of art!
Many wheels come with metal lugs that project up from the wheel head and these locate into small holes in the bat to hold it in place whilst a is being made.
My wheel doesn't come with lugs, it is lug-less.... and I actually prefer throwing directly on the wheel head anyway, rather than on a bat, so that suits me fine, however.... there are occasions when I really do have to use a bat, and I will show you in this little video how I attach this with a pad of clay.
Comments
Lovely to hear from you. I sense that you are in a reflective mood, time certainly has "flown", and when I look back at photos that I was taking of my work 10 years ago I do feel a mixture of happy and sad. Time does move quickly and not everything ends up getting done that we hoped for, but... different things do happen instead! Whenever I start to feel that life is "too short" I think about the Mayfly, which is like a very small dragonfly. I remember reading somewhere that the Mayfly only lives for a day, once it has its lovely wings, and when I think of that, I realize how lucky we humans are! It was around 10 years ago that I so hoped to visit the USA, and it would have been so nice to have met up with you and the other people that were blogging at that time. Life has such twists and turns! Laura and I are both doing reasonably well, NZ is 2 weeks into "lockdown" to try to get on top of the virus threat. Whilst it is a little strange not to be able to meet up with friends, I must admit to enjoying the fact that the busy main road that passes our door is now so quiet! It is lovely to be able to hear birdsong so well!
Pxx
We are both OK and getting quite used to the "lockdown". Things are due to change a little this coming week with some of the restrictions being relaxed somewhat.
Regards crystalline glazing, I'm firing a crystalline test firing as I write this. Should be able to unpack the kiln on Tuesday and see what has occurred! I had intended to update the blog today, but have been checking the small manual electric kiln so frequently that couldn't concentrate on writing. About half an hour to go until I can switch off... which will make for a 15 hour firing.
Must away now. All the very best! :-)