Week 15 Spring 2024

This week we got to open the wood kiln! There was not crystal growth like I had hoped but we did get some crystallization on other glazes as well as some crystals in a catcher from one of my pieces. All in all it was a successful firing as we learned that zinc silicate crystal formation in a reduction wood kiln firing is possible! I am very excited to move forward with my exploration of this process and see if I can recreate this environment possibly with a faster cooling cycle to further explore this process!

This is a like image to the one I added to last weeks post. My traingle vase is the blue drippy vase in the bottom left of the image. It did not produce crystals on the side as i had hoped however a pot with the same glaze fired to a mirror finish with no crystallization on its face but a beautiful pattern in its catcher.

This is the image of the bowl, one side is a beautiful royal blue while the other side is a true mirror black. It is this bowl that the catcher grew crystals in.

While I do wish this would have happened on the side of my bowl I am still very excited to see this crystal growth because it means that it is possible!

Another glaze I tested in the wood kiln came out to be a reddish-green color as there was a fair amount of copper in the recipe. It did create some small crystal formations but not as I would have hoped.

The piece on the left sitting in the bowl catcher is also a piece I put a crystalline glaze on however that glaze did not do much other than create a beautiful green. The bowls next to it were made of a clay that warped during the firing but caught themselves rather than falling over completely which could have caused numerous things to crash about the kiln.

Next week is the bowl sale and the final week of classes! As I have been doing a majority of tests and figuring out what works and doesn't I will not have anything in the sale however I will have tons to sell next semester as I have figured out a few glazes and how they are to be fired! I have learned so much this semester that will benefit me throughout my final semester as well as my career as an artist!

See yall next week for a final check-in this semester!