ALONG THE ROAD

A few years back I decided I would like to try my hand at a glaze that is loosely based on the gosu of Kawai Kanjiro and before you think it or say it, I certainly realize this to be a rather lofty and impossible task that would test my limitations of patience. Once started, I am not sure what I thought or expected but the tests started piling up with little to no success and few promising avenues. I encountered shivering at one point, crawling at others and a quest that was stalling due to lack of real direction until by happenstance in a conversation with another potter I had an idea as to how to proceed. My first tests after this point showed promise and went from test to 20" tall vase within just a couple of months and along the road from then till now and constant testing, I have gotten as close to this glaze as is practical and can honestly say, I arrived at this without existing recipes or formulas to create my own glaze from little more than clay and oxides. To be clear, this is not bragging, like many potters I have come up with a number of glazes that I didn't pluck out of a book or handout, simply put my real point is that with enough hard work, good and sometimes lucky direction and lots of tests (over 100) it is possible to get exactly  or darn close to where you are going to say, I have arrived. My goal was to make a blue gosu style glaze that I like, would enjoy using and would hopefully compliment my pots and how I work and I think that is exactly what has been accomplished. Now if only I could get every other glaze I have been struggling with to work, I would be all set.

Illustrated is a Ao+ covered jar from my last firing. It has a thick, combed slip under the glaze and the depth and color of the surface is a bit richer in person. It is always rewarding to see that I can repeat the result from firing to firing, the last true test that the glaze actually works.

"Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience." Ralph Waldo Emerson