INDIGO

As with most of my work, I like to see what forms and glazes work well together at times pushing what will and will not work. After making a number of teabowls a while back, I went through the usual suspects of temmoku/ medieval green, temmoku/ ash, amber, two types of Oribe and saffron/ iron yellow and had three pieces left over after a few firings. Since I hadn’t tried out this type of bowl with the soda blue and wanting to know who the form, decoration and glaze would all work together, I thought it was well past time and glazed them up, one faceted, sandy bowl and two combed slip pieces. The sandy bowl came out looking quite unappealing so it met with an unfortunate hammer accident and this is the remaining combed slip bowl.

This particular bowl, a bit ovalled and with undulating lip was entirely black slipped before applying and combing the white over and the base is entirely black except the foot ring which is the soda blue coloration over stoneware. As you can see, the texture and depth of the slip creates a neat effect altering the glaze color as it moves around the bowl and there is a really intriguing band of almost indigo blue at the base where the bowl and bottom join which makes for a nice accent. I have to admit, I am thinking that I prefer more straight forward thrown vessels for this soda blue glaze but may need to make a few more thrown and slightly altered pieces to get a fuller perspective, just one more thing on the list to get to sometime in the next year or so!