Sometimes the Best Things in Life Just Take Time

     As I entered my spring semester in January, I set out to make 100 mugs before May. That may not seem like a difficult task, but 4 months is only around 120 days. On top of that, I was only on campus 4 days a week, which puts me at around 64 days. In those 4 months, I tried to create a set or series of mugs that went with a particular moment in time. This moment of time I chose was swimming with manta rays in 2013. I remembered the experience vividl because it was one of the most exciting things I had ever done. I remembered the darkness around us as we swam at night, and the millions of fish and bubbles surrounding us. As I tried to find adjectives to describe that scene, I also had to think of colors to use as a glaze.  Obviously I knew I wanted a dark blue color to show the dark ocean that surrounded us, but I also wanted to add in a light color to symbolize the streaks and spots of light that the divers below us were shining. This was a color combination that I had never used before, so I wasn't really sure how to go about finding it. I searched the internet and hundreds of glaze recipes to find a nice dark blue base to start with, and tried countless glaze tests. None of them were what I wanted. I ended up with lots of light blues and greens. I knew I had a "Floating Blue" glaze that I loved from high school, but it was a lighter color so I didn't initially think it would work. I gave up on finding glazes for a little bit and focused on the aesthetic for the mugs themselves.
     Thinking back to the experience, I remembered the bubbles most of all. Every time the divers below would breathe, it would send bubbles up to the surface where we were floating. It would tickle our stomachs, and leave crazy bubble trails as far as we could see. I also remember the manta rays doing flips in the water while they were feeding, and all the fish zooming past us. There was coral all along the bottom which also intrigued me. This lead me to these first couple mugs I produced.

As you can see, the I hadn't quite achieved the dark blue I was looking for. These glazes were all from the same glaze, but fired in different kilns. The more green colored mugs were fired in a kiln that had a ventilation system which allowed more oxygen into the system. The darker mugs were fired in a kiln with a more reduced atmosphere.  I was still not getting the aesthetic or color that I was looking for, so I continued in my search.

The two pictures above are a combination I tried on a tan clay. I wanted to see if adding a black glaze on top of the floating blue glaze would create the dark blue I was looking for. This glaze combination was tested before I figured out that the different kilns were producing different colors. This did indeed create the dark look I was going for, but I didn't like that the glaze on the outside of the mug was so sudden in color change. I wanted some flowing glaze action, but the two glazes were too stable to run freely. Now I had to figure out how to create that look on the entire mug.

Now it was too dark. The black glaze was too thick and covered up any detail or texture I created. I loved the rim color and a few spots on each of these mugs, but I was not pleased with the overall look of it. The top mugs originally had a beautiful carved texture that was just wiped out after it was fired with the glaze. Unfortunately, as any potter can tell you, ceramics can be heart breaking at times.

This was about March now, Dozens of mugs that were nice, but not what I was looking for. These mugs above were created with a black clay body. I thought that if I used a dark clay, my glazes would turn out darker as a result. This did turn out to be true for the first mug. That mug has the same floating blue as almost all of the mugs above, but is almost black now on top of the black clay. The mug on the right is also the black clay, but with a clear glaze on top. This one really surprised me....I used the black clay for the mug itself, and then used a slip trail bottle to create hundreds of dots with white clay. When the clear glaze was applied to the black clay, it turned brown. Also not what I was wanting, but created a great looking mug.

These mugs are all including the imagery I had designed to create the visual I had of the scene without being too literal, but none of them had the glaze I wanted still. These were all white clay with the floating blue on top. These have dots pushed in, as well as slip trailed dots on the outside. Some have textured carved into it, which causes the glaze to break nicely into a brown. I was loving these mugs that were coming out of the kiln, and I was like a kid on Christmas every time I opened a kiln. But I still had this vision in my head that I really wanted to achieve.

 

I FINALLY FOUND IT. After months of trying, and months of struggling, I finally found what I was looking for. I found that the black clay with a floating blue and a white glaze just around the rim made the most perfect glaze that accentuated the texture, and flowed beautifully in shades of dark blue, green, white and black. This perfectly captured the colors of the scenery and made an amazing glaze combination for the continuation of this series. This, unfortunately, came during the last week of the semester. Four months of exploration and experimenting, but the glaze finally came. The two large mugs are now kept in my personal collection to submit to cup shows. This series will now be expanded further, and will dive deeper into the imagery from this experience.  Pottery can involve extremely involved chemistry, as well as physics. It looks like a fun activity that would be mindless and stress relieving. While Throwing pots on the wheel is my happy place, it can be a challenging venture. It can be extremely rewarding, but it can also be heart breaking. Pieces breaking, blowing up, cracking, turning out completely wrong...
     Ive found wheel throwing to be my absolute passion, and I will continue making pottery as long as I am able. The journey is worth the reward.