My "dream" project

One of my ceramic assignments this semester was to create a "dream" project. The meaning of "dream" was left to our interpretation. I chose to make a wall piece with an abstract flowing feminine form suggesting floating or dreaming. Here is the piece when I had just finished making it in wet clay. After the piece dries it will be fired in a kiln to about 1800 degrees, the bisque firing.

 

I then apply glaze to the piece. On this one I choose to do a stain first using Cobalt Carbonate which is deep blue. I then put a Celedon glaze over that. Celedon is a beautiful transparent soft green which should work well with the Cobalt's blues to make my piece appear watery, flowing, and dream-like. Here is the piece at this stage. 

And here is the piece after it has been glaze fired. This is done at about 2300 degrees. I think it came out wonderfully.

My Spring adventure

Well, here I am with the first post of my blog. I am going to share one of my favorite things of the semester in Ceramics at San Francisco State University, the pit fire. This is a special firing for clay that we do in a beautiful natural setting in Tiburon, California. All of the ceramic courses are involved and participate. There is much preparation leading up to this. First, we create our individual ceramic pieces. They are made of red clay as this works best in the pit fire. This semester I am continuing my exploration into Celtic knots. I have a Celtic heritage and when I discovered the knots and symbols that have been used for centuries I was enthralled. I love to get lost in the movement of the ribbon of which there is most usually one unending loop. There are two in marriage knots that entwine each other.

Here is a Celtic tile I completed last semester. This is one ribbon all the way through. You can pick a point and start to follow the ribbon with your eyes and you will find that you eventually will return to where you started. I truly enjoy the lines that gently weave in, out, and around each other. This piece was finished with a high fire glaze. This semester I will be exploring pit firing my knots.

I begin by rolling a slab of clay. I cut the slab in the shape I desire and trace the lines of my design on the surface.

 

I then use small carving tools like these to carve the design into the knot.

This semester I made a series of 3 different knots. Here they are waiting to go into the pit fire. Since there is often breakage in the pit fire, I made more than one of each knot to ensure I got a complete set of the series back.To get to this stage there are a couple things that must be done first. The piece must be burnished, which means to polish the clay when it almost fully dry using a smooth, hard stone, such as quartz. This is a tedious job done by hand, being extremely careful not to break it. It is then fired in a kiln to about 1800 degrees. This is called the bisque firing. After this firing the clay becomes ceramic or glass like. 

Here is our kiln room at SFSU where we bisque the ceramics for the pit fire.

We then bring everything out to where we do our pit fire in Tiburon, CA. Here is my professor, Jeff Downing, inspecting the pit after laying down saw dust, preparing to load the pit with our art work.

We then begin to load the pit.

Here is my work in the pit, ready to be fired.

 

We then sprinkle rock salt and copper carbonate over the work to increase the depth of colors on the finished piece. 

Wood is placed carefully over the entire pit before it is lit.

The wood is lit on fire and will burn for a day. Then it is left to cool for another day before bringing the finished work back to the SFSU ceramic studio.

This part is always like Christmas for us. We have worked so hard on creating our art work and preparing it diligently for this process. We have no idea how nature will paint our pieces, where or what colors will develop, although it is always fantastic. Here are my finished knot tiles. I am very pleased with the results.