Making

The technique I have evolved for slab building these pieces (inspired by a course I attended with Ruth King*) has completely transformed my usual slab building approach, leading me to create intricate, more organic, bone-like sculptures.

Over the years, I’ve collected a range of bird and animal skulls and bones from beachcombing on the west coast of Ireland, Scilly Isles and most recently Isle of Mull and surrounding islands. Not only are their shapes and forms intriguing, but they also often have an enchanting, white, smooth, sea-worn finish. Others, in contrast, have the impressions of shells and barnacles or the indentations of sand and pebbles from the movement of seawater and the pull of tides over them. Sometimes seaweed can leave a pattern or a colour which marks them or even attach itself to a bone or egg case. In making these pieces I’ve attempted to create some of the different forms, colours and textures these beachcombed items can throw up.

Glazing

These pieces have been further developed using a variety of glazes and glazing techniques.

Some are simply glazed with a matt transparent glaze, so as not to detract from the form, with small amounts of lustre glaze applied to those almost hidden parts to create an iridescent effect -as with a shell- or maybe some oxides.

Others have had Terra Sigillata glaze applied prior to a bisc firing, followed by a smoke firing. This creates a very smooth, sheen like appearance on the surface with the unpredictability of colours, shades and shadows from the smoke firing.

And others have been Raku fired with all the unpredictability, textures and colours which this shock process brings, creating and transforming a piece in a dynamic and exciting way.

Firing

These pieces have been variously fired using oxidation (in a conventional kiln), reduction firing (in a smoking bin) and Raku firing (in a gas kiln)

Electric kilns use an oxidization method and are predictable, reliable and generally straightforward to use.

Assuming the make is good, the ware has been properly dried out and the glaze is appropriate for the kiln temperature and the programme being used what comes out will, more or less, be what you are expecting. When combining different glazes and/or using oxides sometimes the results will be intriguing and different, possibly creating unrepeatable results.

Smoke firing is a reduction firing method after bisc firing a piece. The temperature in the bin is unlikely to reach much beyond 800/900 °c  but the effects on the ware, depending on what is put into the bin or wrapped around the piece (apart from the paper, sawdust and wood necessary to create the fire) can be very variable. These results come about as a result of oxygen deprivation (when the lid is placed onto the bin) once the fire is started, allowing then only the smoke to impact the ware.

Obvara firing is similar to the raku process in that bisc ware is placed in a kiln up to about 800 before being removed and plunged into the ‘glaze’ mixture which comprises water, flour, sugar and yeast!  It is then removed almost immediately and placed in cold water to ‘set’ the pattern.  This creates a decorative covering over the ware, with interesting patterns and effects as determined by the clay body including any marks, patterns and indentations there may be on the clay and any glaze used prior to the bisc. This is an old eastern European technique, relatively recently re-discovered, used to .