LEAVING WELL ENOUGH ALONE

When I start using a new glaze, I am constantly trying to figure out its limits and limitations. By pushing the glaze I can get differing surfaces, running qualities and sometimes a glaze that bares no resemblance to the original. Maybe it is the wannabe alchemist in me that makes testing, retesting and altering what already works an enjoyable part of making pots.

Taking a minor cue from Tsukigata Nahiko, I have been playing with the iron content and thickness in the glaze that started out as my “new” partridge feather glaze. As I have nudged it a bit, here and there, I have been seeing a new glaze quality periodically that resembles some modern Tamba pottery. In my most recent firing, I glazed a severely paddled teabowl in my temmoku and tetsu-yu glazes and the illustrated bowl is the result. It is a really nice mixture of runny ash and iron intermingled in the one glaze. I wonder why I just can’t leave well enough alone, but the real question is why would I want to, it is just not in my nature.

“There is only one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” Victor Hugo