Winter 2024 Ceramics Round-up
Every winter since I moved to Maine in 2022, I have taken wheel throwing ceramics classes at the Maine College of Art & Design (MECA&D) to try my hand at a non-fiber-related creative hobby and to make sure I leave the house on the weekends, which is a real struggle in the depths of winter. It’s been both fun and very humbling, and I plan to continue this tradition for winter 2025. Last April, right after the winter 2024 session wrapped up, I documented the objects I made during that session, wrote up an almost-entire blog post, and then never hit publish. Whoops! :) So here is my much-delayed summary of the last batch of wheel-thrown ceramic objects I made earlier this year…
During the winter 2024 class, I slightly improved my throwing technique and experienced a lot of ceramics “firsts”: working with a stoneware clay, reduction firing (which I LOVE), raku firing, throwing a lidded object, and using the washi tape resist method to create contrasting glazed/unglazed stripes. While I did oxidation-fire a few pieces, I really leaned into reduction firing because I love how it turns the stoneware clay body a very toasty brown and how it lends itself to a very earthy glaze palette. I made a lot of pieces I really like and, I can say now in retrospect, I use a lot in my day-to-day, whether it’s for eating/drinking or just for storing small sewing and knitting tools.
When the winter 2025 session starts up in January, I hope to continue refining my throwing technique, reduction firing pieces, employing consistent and reliable glazes where possible, and playing with more tape resist and carved surface techniques. I would also love to work on pulling better mug handles because there’s a lot of room for improvement in that arena. Finally, I’d like to be more selective with what I choose to fire. In past classes, I fire basically everything that comes off my wheel, and this has left me with a fair few wonky pieces that I could have just recycled and re-thrown into something else. There’s no need to be so precious with everything I throw! It’s a lesson I learned long ago with knitting and sewing—even though you invested time and energy into making a thing, if it’s not working for you it’s OK to recycle your materials into something new. Since you can’t really do that with clay that has been fired, I’d like to work on being more scrutinous during the throwing stage.
And now, on to the objects I made in winter 2024:
For these four reduction-fired pieces, I used a pretty unruly but gorgeous-looking glaze combo: Alfred White & Tenmoku Gold. The second-from-left bowl was the first piece I glazed with this combination. It came out the most amazing mottled swampy green color and miraculously didn’t run much. So I used the same glaze combination for the other three on a subsequent firing, but unfortunately all of them ran quite a bit during the glaze firing. Regardless, I think the rogue glaze drips work well with the swampy-looking glaze so I’m not too upset by it. My favorite of this group is the mug, which has my best pulled handle of this class session. Plus since I left the bottom 1/3 of the mug unglazed, the runny glazes had plenty of space to drip in a decorative way.
In the winter 2024 session, I worked on throwing larger bowls, and with the help of consistent glazing (Kitten’s Clear FTW) and reduction firing, I ended up with this fun group of 4 bowls, which we use constantly in our kitchen. They’re not quite a nesting set and there are some variations in the bowl shapes, but I love them nonetheless! I threw them smallest to largest, and the largest was the most clay I’ve ever tried to wrangle on a wheel—about 5 lbs.
Above are a few more faves glazed with Kitten’s Clear and reduction fired. Left is my first lidded vessel (more pics below). At center is my favorite mug of this class session, decorated with a resist method using washi tape in two different widths. I would 100% use that resist method with this glaze again. The lines are bare clay, which turns a perfect toasty brown when reduction-fired. Right is a little cup I threw on a whim at the end of the class.
I don’t typically gravitate toward blue glazes—unless it’s a green-leaning-blue—but in this class I was drawn to this Deep Blue Sea glaze, which is the quintessential royal blue with a glossy surface. It doesn’t pool/run much when fired, which is a bonus! (I love a stable and reliable glaze.) I used DBS on a handful of smaller bowls, a mug with a too-small handle, and a little curved utensil cup (second from right). The bowl and mug at left use the washi tape-resist method. That bowl has been in high rotation since I made it last winter—it turns out it’s the perfect size/shape for my daily breakfast of overnight oats.
These two use Alfred Black glaze on the exterior, with different glaze applications. For the large cup/storage vessel on the left, I used my new favorite washi tape resist method, dipped the outside in Alfred Black, and reduction-fired it. For the bowl on the right, I dipped the whole thing in Honey Purple glaze and then poured Alfred Black over the exterior and interior, letting the drips do their thing. The bowl is oxidation-fired, which gives the clay a creamy tone.
These shapes turned out kind of wonky in the throwing phase, so I decided to play with some surface carving (right) and checkerboard tape resist application (left). Both were dipped in Honey Purple and oxidation fired. The carved areas on the bottom half of the vessel on the right allow the glaze to pool in the carved bits. For the bowl at left, the glazed areas are lighter, and the darker areas are bare clay with a great toasted tone. I will certainly play around with both of these surface treatments in the future, hopefully on some better-thrown pieces.
Just to keep it real, not all of my glaze applications were winners! These two small bowls were glazed with Alfred White and Kitten’s Clear, which ended up running like crazy in the reduction firing. They’re a bit wild-looking but I still enjoy them.
These rugged-looking bowls are my first experiments in raku firing. This method of firing does not produce a food-safe finish, so I saved a few of my poorly-thrown duds for the raku kiln. We did the raku firing in class on our last day, which was a fun way to wrap up the class session. Both of these were glazed by brushing on a white raku glaze, which ends up with a fair bit of crazing (that subtle crackle effect). The black areas are bare clay!
