Category: Pottery

Thrown and Stamped Fish Cup

Epsilon Phase Iron in Tenmoku

For those of you who are really interested in Oil Spots, there’s an article from 2014 that I think is worth a long look. This particular article was what got me interested in SEM microscopy when I was in Grad School:

Learning from the past: Rare ε-Fe2O3 in the ancient black-glazed Jian (Tenmoku) wares – Nature.com

Abstract

         Ancient Jian wares are famous for their lustrous black glaze that exhibits unique colored patterns. Some striking examples include the brownish colored “Hare’s Fur” (HF) strips and the silvery “Oil Spot” (OS) patterns. Herein, we investigated the glaze surface of HF and OS samples using a variety of characterization methods. Contrary to the commonly accepted theory, we identified the presence of ε-Fe2O3, a rare metastable polymorph of Fe2O3 with unique magnetic properties, in both HF and OS samples. We found that surface crystals of OS samples are up to several micrometers in size and exclusively made of ε-Fe2O3. Interestingly, these ε-Fe2O3 crystals on the OS sample surface are organized in a periodic two dimensional fashion. These results shed new lights on the actual mechanisms and kinetics of polymorphous transitions of Fe2O3. Deciphering technologies behind the fabrication of ancient Jian wares can thus potentially help researchers improve the ε-Fe2O3 synthesis.

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Concrete Celadon Glaze

 

Here are a couple of sets I made using concrete as a glaze material. It was pretty simple to make. The project began after finding two concrete paving tiles in a construction rubble dump. The larger one I kept for the bases, and the other I busted with a sledge hammer into gravel sized chunks. The gravel went into a bisque kiln, and the remaining slab went into the brick saw to get cut in half. Once the calcined concrete came out of the bisque, the friable powder went into the ball mill and ran for a relatively short 8 hours. After sieving out the remaining sand and large pebbles, I had myself a pretty nice looking glaze slurry. Overnight I noticed a lot of settling, I added a small bit of epsom salt, and what I guessed to be  about 1-5% by weight of bentonite. It still settled a bit, but not so much that you couldn’t use it. The application of the glaze was dipping, with a bit of spraying to build a thicker layer of glaze on the top half of each piece.

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Iridescent Hare’s Fur Tenmoku

Started out with Kamada Koji’s big bang glaze in mind. I’ve been completely obsessed with all glazes iridescent for some time now. This is my favorite variation to date… but still too subtle and elusive. Closer than I was, but still a lot of room for improvement.
This is the glaze I’m calling Fiske GoldFur – which came from a blend of some variations on a fake Mashiko with calcined redart, and a variation of a Britt oilspot with local black dolomite.
The center action of the GoldFur piece.
Some combination of some variations of variations.
Started out with Kamada Koji’s big bang glaze in mind. I’ve been completely obsessed with all glazes iridescent for some time now. This is my favorite variation to date… but still too subtle and elusive. Closer than I was, but still a lot of room for improvement.
Another angle of the GoldFur piece. Getting closer and closer to something completely new and completely incredible.