EXPERTUS, TESTIS, EXERTUS

Anyone who has spent time at the Cleveland Museum of Art can attest to the fact that if you want to see good pots, you are certainly at the right place. The pottery spans each time period and collection from ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome through the Art Nouveau, Arts and crafts and modern studio pottery movement. It really is a great place to see and study pottery. Among the large collection of Japanese and Chinese pots there was a wonderful display of small and intimate Jun Yao wares. Those soft and atmospheric lavender blue glazed pots with vivid splashes of deep purple or crimson coming up through the glaze were among our favorites to look at and ponder.

From time to time I have experimented with trying to recreate a nice soft looking jun-yao glaze. I have been moderately successful and then for some inexplicable reason, the glaze just stops working. While in the midst of testing several months back, I got out a test pod that showed some promise. It had that quality I was after where it breaks hard on raised areas and sharp lines. Some tweaking here and there and here is the latest result. The underglaze decoration is based on copper and the actual glaze has a slightly more lavender tone to it. I am going to try and tweak the glaze a bit more and come up with a purple underglaze decoration that isn’t as refractory as the previous attempts. All in good time and I suspect that I will no sooner get it to work just the way I want that it will just stop working yet again.