I
have been in the midst of glazing pots for a stoneware/ porcelain firing and
took a picture of a chawan freshly glazed, leaving me to wonder if it is a
gaggle of geese is it a cluster or conference of chawan? At any rate I started
loading the kiln and remembered one of those lessons learned moments and went
and mixed up some wadding to put on the feet of most of the pots, especially
the teabowls. Years ago I used to have crazy problems losing pots with ash
glazes and finally took what I had learned from salt and wood firing and
started wadding the pots. The glaze combinations that I tend to use and like
are rather runny and since I glaze right up to the point of no return on the
feet, better to take every precaution possible and eliminate having to try to
grind pots flat and somewhat usable (or creating a larger shard pile). Using
Elmer's glue, I attach the wads to the pots and got the kiln loaded and ready
to fire. At least in this way I have mitigated one of the myriad of things that
can go wrong and bought myself a slight measure of relief.
"Prevention
is better than cure." Goethe
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