Pottery Journal 080109

[George Lewter]

This blogging business is new to me,

and I just realized that by trying to maintain a single ongoing blog here on ning, that any comments would get separated from the current topic. It seems that the answer is to do a new post whenever you add to your writings, rather than updating an old or ongoing piece. By separating the posts, comments will be attached to one day's observations rather than, say, a whole year's journal.

The big news with me is that I have signed up to take the "What's the Fuss about Reduction" workshop with Steven Hill over the Labor Day weekend in September. It will concentrate on techniques for achieving atmospheric glaze effects in oxidation as well as reduction, by spraying and layering glazes. I am really charged up about this because I work in relative isolation and get re-energized by inteacting with others who have similar interests. The only downside for me is the glazes and firing will be in the cone 8-9 range which won't help with my specific glazes. I look forward to passing on what I learn that might be of interest to the other members of this cone 6 network.

Last month I fired some tests with a new "special red iron oxide" from Ceramic Supply in New Jersey, hoping for a good red from Randy's Red and another saturated iron red. Both recipes came out as muddy browns on white stoneware, so I still have no solution to the iron red in oxidation in an electric kiln problem. This is the third red iron oxide formulation I have tried without success. If any of you have a recipe and or firing technique for getting iron red, I would dearly love to know how it's done.

George Lewter