Coil Master

Some people score and slurry between coils, others use no slurry at all.Whatever works for the individual. here's a guy that's got it sorted, wheel or no wheel.

Bernard Leach: A Potter's World

I'm just trying out the video embedding feature - I thought I'd post this extract from Bernard Leach's black and white movie 'A Potter's World':

It's good to see one of the old masters at work and hear his philosophy of pots.

Kiln opening

Here are the results from the gas reduction firing we did on Thursday. The pieces were glazed in two classic Chinese reduction glazes - Celadon and Copper Red. They were fired to 1300 degrees C (Cone 10).  A 'reduction' means that the oxygen is shut off to the kiln, creating a smoky atmosphere, starving the glaze components of oxygen.

The iron that gave the celadon glaze a pink appearance before firing (see the last post) is transformed to a beautiful pale green, and the copper- which would turn bright green in an oxidised firing - is a deep red, hence the name: Copper Red.

Here's a short video we made showing the kiln just after opening the door - you can hear the celadon making little 'ting' sounds as the glaze cools down and cracks. Days later, the pieces are still going 'ting!' from time to time as the glaze continues to develop its crackle effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUtkAU3IXAo

And a You Tube video showing the traditional techniques of Longquan celadon in China:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3kU52xtu4E

Pottery on YouTube

YouTube is a great place to see other potters in action. Whatever project you're working on, someone else has probably uploaded a video of it.  Here are some all-time favourites (I think this might turn into an ongoing series...)

Isaac Button, Country Potter 

A great black and white movie about a lost way of life (no sound on the original either). Traditional English potter, Isaac Button, doing his thing. More info on Isaac Button here. Make sure you watch all the parts of the movie

Shoji Hamada, 1968

A black and white throwing movie of the influential Japanese potter. I love the way he doesn't worry about the wobbles in his pot - it all works out in the end.

Bernard Leach: A Potter's World (Extract)

It's Bernard Leach...probably the best known and most influential British potter of the 20th Century, he travelled to Japan to study Shoji Hamada and the 'mingei' aesthetic, and then re-introduced the art of making simple, handmade organic pottery to the Western world. Author of  'A Potter's Book', known as 'the potter's bible' in the 60's and 70's. Here he is at the wheel...

Michael Cardew, Potter

The first apprentice at Bernard Leach's St Ives Pottery in Cornwall, 1923, Michael Cardew  also spent twenty years building up potteries in Ghana and Nigeria, before returning to England.

Kim Young-Ho, Korean Onggi Potter

Amazing, large coil-thrown pot made by an 8th-generation Korean potter - using a kick-wheel.




AND finally got round to uploading some pottery videos of my own at the weekend...

The first vid  shows me finishing off the arch on a small brick kiln, using a wooden former template, with a layer of straight bricks, covered in a castable refractory cement mix. It has to be strong and withstand temperatures exceeding 1300 degrees.  And it helps to have a piglet keeping an eye (or snout) on things....


The other one shows me throwing salt into a salt-glazed kiln,. This happens right at the end of a 12-15 hour firing , I throw the salt in when the temperature reaches 1300 degrees.