I kept quiet about my last firing and had better remain so, although probably the explosions were noisy. Fortunately nobody was there in the night to hear.
Today I’m much happier; I have about 30 “tea bowls”, all quite different and all, in their various ways, with some beauty for their maker when looked at individually. It’s odd how the feeling of reasonable satisfaction when the kiln is first opened matures to real pleasure when each piece is examined individually. Their individual qualities are important to them.
They’re much smaller and quite different from my usual “bottles” but they do use partially mixed clays for the agate effect and in some, copper oxide mixed with the body to give a greenish hue. I have one new glaze that I’m pleased with and potters might be surprised by the reduced, copper red in another coming out of an electric kiln, but it’s not really magic!
