Third Firing: Happy accidents

"We don't make mistakes -- we just have happy accidents."

Bob Ross


Here is it three firings, one pot. Bisque firing readies the form for glaze, while the stoneware firing readies the pot for its premier. Third firings are usually kept for specialties, gold lustres or printed decals, these firings show off fine skills and finer materials. My third firings though, my third firings are for fuck ups.


I remember throwing this pot. A large mountain of clay stood on my wheel, I had been yanking small cups off it all morning. I was getting to the end and the chawans were getting monotonous. Screw making a another tea set, lets make something big. I took that mass of clay and wrestled it into a form that I felt justified firing. A nice rounded, chubby pot. I scratched the slip with delicate, flowing patterns. From its dried state I sent the pot on its one way journey towards vitrification. With the pot freshly bisqued and its quartz inverted it was ready for glaze. I had a fine, respectable surface decoration, but how best to show it off?


This process took place during my start of third year Bachelors, I needed to experiment with multiple materials to get cool effects and good marks. Onto my pot I added a slop of cobalt carbonate, silicon carbide, and potash feldspar. Wiped away as to just cling to clay ridges the vessel I prayed that these little troughs of colour and texture would show of the pot's delicate form. Into a milk-thick clear glaze, I quickly dunked my vessel. Loaded into the kiln I dreamt of flowing patterns of a blue and reduced glaze. A perfect harmony between the clay and the glaze; this was never meant to be.

Silicon carbide holds onto its form until 1000 degrees Celsius, from here it suffers a violent onslaught from the properties of molten glaze. Pried apart by the liquid glass the compound releases a cloud of carbon monoxide. These clouds have often been used to the reproduce the effects of a gas kiln within a electric one.

Every pot taken from a glaze firing is an archive of chemical reactions, in my case ugly chemical reactions. The unfused silica in the potash feldspar and silicon carbide had clouded the otherwise clear glaze. Sure enough the silicon carbide has given off its noxious gas. This atmosphere would not produce carbon trapped black spots, which I like, but instead littered the pot with pinholes. These holes blemished my pot like acne scars. The finish was a mess. The delicate scratches I had made into the clay were gone forever, hidden beneath a thick shield of white glaze. I really didn't like it. It looked dirty, untidy. The blue didn't match the form. There remained a really unclear boundary between the interior and the exterior. From the finish to the texture everything looked muffled. Not subtle, muffled. Ah dang I thought. This pot is a symbol of my hubris. A prime example of why one should experiment with test tiles not full forms.

There's a funny thing with not caring about a pot anymore. It's liberating knowing your are free to try out new things without fear of making things worse. Ah fuck it, why not firing again. Chuck in back into the inferno. I reached into a bucket at the side of my desk, a white shino thick with a cellulose gum, and slapped the glaze onto the freshly fired pot. I didn't have time to care about using brushes, my hands will do. Running my fingers around the pot I reintroduced flowing grooves not in the clay but in the glaze. BACK YOU GO BUDDY. Into the kiln the pot was rudely fired for a third and final time.

From my most despised thrown piece to my favorite, I love this pot not just for its finish but for its story. It's the ugly duckling turned into the beautiful swan. I love how the shino floats atop a blue cobalt sea. I love how the glaze cracks under surface-tension. I love how the skin is smooth no longer blistered. Finally some balance between the form and surface.

The most fertile soil is that scorched by a destructive fire. A forest fire frees chemicals locked in place, allowing them to be absorbed and transformed into new ever more astonishing forms. A kiln firing frees the chemicals locked in a glaze, allowing them to be absorbed and transformed to smother an ever more beautiful form.








Special thanks to Janelle Low who took these stunning photographs


@janellelow_

http://www.janellelow.com/