COMMONWEALTH ASH

Recently a friend sent me some wood ash from his studio in Virginia, so as with all new materials, I decided to test it and glazed and decorated a teabowl and put it in the last firing. When I unloaded the kiln, there were two teabowls near each other, one from the old ash and one from the new Virginia ash and though both the Nuka surfaces were similar the colors were quite different. The old ash which had originated in upper NY State came from Bill Klock and my sister-in-law and has a decidedly blue-grey tone to it while the new ash (see the attached illustration) from the Commonwealth of Virginia seems quite a bit cleaner running to a just off-white color and a much brighter surface. Truthfully I am fine with both surfaces but it is quite apparent what just over 500 miles and varied sources can mean when using wood ash as a major glaze component.