Convalescence

I've been off sick in bed for several days with the flu and haven't been able to do much at all. It's been quite an out of body experience with even walking being in slow motion and my co-ordination is shot. It's been a real drag when its so hot and sunny outside with so much to do and so little time.  After four days I was feeling well enough to get out of the house and go for a walk around the block.

A view from the top of Bennet's Rd looking down on the estuary.

Autumn sky

Coastal erosion and king tides at this time of year

Winter Studio

It's been a busy month and the weather is unusually warm for this time of year, but now it is time to move down to the winter studio before the cold weather closes in. I have been working on fixing up an old shack that I have been using as a studio for a number of years. It is actually an old pioneer cottage that was built in the 1860's. It's seen better days but that just adds to the character and most importantly, it has an open fire.

Autumn colours of wilding cherry trees at the gate.

The potter's cottage and salt kilns

The old kitchen, transformed into a throwing area. Test pots thrown off the hump, drying, and ready to be dipped in glaze and raw fired.

The old bedroom window. I have been using plastic to keep out the elements and have been picking up cheap windows where I can. So far I have replaced four windows. It's so nice to have a view through glass and it's much warmer than plastic!

The old parlour (or sitting room),which I've furnished from the local refuse recycling shop at Green Island. A good place to relax and warm up by the fire.

These are the salt glaze slips that appear on pages 232-233 of Phil Roger's excellent book, 'Salt Glazing' (2002). Applied to raw test pots before going into the kiln.

Cutting shelves to size, and using some of the off-cuts as props. I also cut up old fire bricks for larger props. These are all then shelf-washed to protect them from the salt and hopefully make them last a little longer.

Here I am checking to see if the stack will fit in the kiln. I had about a centimetre to spare!

Steam created when throwing salt into the kiln. I started salting when Cone 9 went over and threw in 14 pounds of salt over the duration of one hour, which melted Cone 10 (1300 deg C) in the top and bottom of the kiln, so it must have reached Cone 11 (1320)  or 12 (1340-50 deg C, given that there's about 20 degrees between cones), but it made for some beautiful high-fired results.

The next morning I got home from work to open up the kiln and see the results, which were very much to my satisfaction.

In this firing, I used sump oil as a fuel and burned it cleanly in an oxidising atmosphere, attempting to achieve copper greens and other various glazes, which I succeeded in doing. Out of about 20 glazes, I got five or six nice ones, which I can make bigger amounts of glaze and scale up the pieces.

Salt-glaze Test Firing

Here's a firing I did last weekend, with a whole bunch of salt glaze tests, using the colourants out of my stoneware glazes in a more suitable salt-glaze slip.

Test salt kiln with chimney in place. The chimney height should be approximately three times in height from the diagonal width of the kiln chamber to get the best draw.

A view through the spy hole of some small test pots and cones 9 and 10

Adding some clay wadding pads to the base of all pots. The wadding is the same as my shelf wash (but with more water so its a kind of a slurry)  and consists of 50 percent Alumina and 50 percent Kaolin which repels the salt quite well and doesn't stick to the bottom of the pots.

Looking through the spy hole, around 800 degrees C

Opening the kiln the next morning to check out the results

Christchurch Earthquake

Our thoughts go out to everyone in New Zealand and overseas who has been affected by the recent 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch. We didn't feel the quake out here in Brighton, although it was felt quite strongly elsewhere in Dunedin, and we feel very fortunate that none of our friends and family have been directly affected, but this is a tragedy that touches everyone in New Zealand. At this point, the number of casualties is still rising, and large areas of the city are still missing vital water and waste and electricity services. The response from the Civil Defence and Search and Rescue teams has been absolutely amazing, with teams coming in from all over the world to offer support.

Stuff.co.nz has a good page here giving the latest news, and if you want to help out, the best way to do that is probably to donate to the Red Cross:  www.redcross.org.nz/donate   or the Salvation Army, who are doing a wonderful job providing food and comfort to anyone who needs it.

Edited to add:

A page from the Christchurch City Libraries collection,  showing archival photos of old Christchurch, including Cashell St, Colombo St, and Cathedral Square. A reminder of just how old this beautiful city is, and a small indication of how very much has been lost.

Test bottles - oxidised glazes

Yesterday I did an oxidised firing in my gas kiln, using some of the same glazes as I used in the last reduction firing but getting totally different results. I was able to obtain some very nice oribe glazes. From copper carbonate I obtained light blue, deep red and copper greens.  Over the next couple of weeks I want to do some salt glazing in reduction and oxidisation, to see if I can get similar colour response but with a salt-glazed textures.

Oxidised glazes in front, same glazes using reduction in the back

Oribe glazes using different feldspars

A selection of oxidised and reduced glazes.

Testing Times

Recently I discovered that small, two-inch high bottles make perfect test pieces for trying out small amounts of glazes.  They are just the right size to dip into a 100 ml glaze pottle and are very attractive when fired. They look much more interesting than the traditional test tiles and also give me a much better idea of what the glaze will look like on a finished pot.  Making the pots is also a great way of exploring form. I am currently using them to try out variations on some of my favourite glazes  including copper red, shino, tenmoku and celadon.

In the 'lab' dipping a test pot into 100 ml of shino glaze

Test pots arranged in the gas kiln

Fired test pots - shino in front, celadon and tenmoku, copper red.

Different shino glazes, using different feldspars. The one on the far left is my original shino recipe, using washing soda crystals from the supermarket, the second from the left is the same recipe but using soda ash from the glaze room. It gives a more fluid melt and also appears to be really good for carbon trapping. When using these materials I found that dissolving in warm water first made the sieving much easier.

The copper reds - different recipes used over buff stoneware and white clay. Done in a reduction fired gas kiln. I hope to refire these same test glazes in oxidisation to produce copper greens.

A selection of variations on some of my glazes including twenty celadon glazes at the back, twenty shinos in the middle, and twenty tenmokus in the front. Not only am I looking for an attractive glaze, but also how it behaves in the bucket - so that it doesn't 'pack down' like a rock, and is easy to stir, sieve and apply.

Time out foraging amongst the hedgerows

Yesterday afternoon Katherine and I went for a walk to Ocean View Beach, and then came back and picked a bowl of blackberries from the bushes along the banks of the creek. Somehow the fattest and juiciest berries are always just out of reach!

Wild blackberries amongst the hedgerows bordering the property

One of my celadon bowls, full of shiny, juicy berries.

Ocean View beach looking towards Blackhead Quarry