Week 4 Spring 2024

Off to the races on my journey into the world of crystalline glazes! I have done so much research this week discovering what spoke to me the most and where my interests lie in this realm. I have come to discover the Cone 10 crystalline glazes pique my interest the most, especially the chemistry behind them. I hope to deep dive into how these glazes are reacting with the colorants and even thickness of application to create wonderful patterns and random assortments of crystal structures. Here's a peek at the trimming from last week!

Cone 10 crystalline glazes fire generally to around 2350 degrees celsius which is right at the max temperature our electric kilns can fire to in the studio. Due to this some of the kilns with older elements cant make it to that temperature anymore so we had to replace them in one of our smaller kilns to provide an electric kiln that can handle crystalline temperatures! It is more feasible to fire these glazes in an electric kiln due to the ability, now with the computerized systems, to control the ramps of the kiln very precisely allowing for optimal crystal growth.

It was a process to get all of the elements in there perfectly and then replace all of those little pins with new ones to hold the corners in place! I am so excited to try out some new glaze recipes and make test tiles to begin the process of finding a glaze and clay body that work well together and create immaculate crystal structures.

I plan to keep exploring forms and get to firing! Come back next week for updates!