THE PLANNED CHAOS

I unloaded a bisque this morning, filled with some serving pieces as orders, covered jars, gourd vases, spice jars (chaire?) and the ubiquitous teabowls. I spent time cleaning the bisque and then glazed and waxed the feet and lips/lids readying the pots for glazing. This group will revolve around the saffron yellow iron glaze, temmoku and red iron and a few odds and ends including the "Jun" glaze I am still working on. Part of the fun that goes along with a glaze firing is the necessity to make up glazes as well. This time around I needed to make up 1000gramms of the Jun and 5000 gramms of the temmoku and alkaline clear glazes. Just part of getting everything ready to go.

My intentions are to start glazing on Monday and finish up with secondary glaze coats, cleaning and kiln loading on Tuesday and firing the glaze kiln on Weds. This will be the first time I have fired any pots with the saffron glaze that were of any size and I am hoping the glaze doesn't just run entirely off the pots. Each of the covered jars and gourd vases will be fired on pieces of old shelf to minimize the catastrophe that is ever present with untried glaze combinations. Illustrated is a group of the bisque ready to be waxed/glazed, the tallest jar in the back is just under 15" tall. The bisque nearly covers two 8' tables, I have a fair amount of work ahead of me.