Technical Information

As mentioned in my artist's statement, my current work is polychrome earthenware. This is underglaze decoration on a white clay body. The underglazes, pigments combined with fluxes and/or clays and gum binders, are applied at various stages before and between firings, applied in conjunction with resists and carvings. The glaze is applied to the entire piece which is supported on some arrangement of stilts in the glaze firing.

I do both throwing and casting, whichever fits the project. If I want something square, I think making a mold and then making castings from that mold is the way to go. I also throw pots on the wheel. I learned to make pots on the wheel and that is the way I prefer to work, but sometimes it just doesn't make sense to me to do it that way. I know there is a whole lot of prejudice about thrown pots being inherently better than cast pots, but I couldn't agree less. In many ways casting slip is superior technically to throwing clay because it doesn't have the plastic clays that make clay easily throwable and also make clay likely to crack and warp. In some instances I use reconstituted casting slip to throw pots for that reason.

Here are some links to information about my use of molds

about making molds

trimming a plate in a mold on a wheel

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