Coiling a large Jar - Reduction Firing

I had begun to make pieces ready for the Visions of Landscape Exhibition I was to be part of in April 2023, I knew I needed to build on the pieces I had made for the Shared Stories NPA exhibition, but that I needed to ensure it benefitted my MA work at the same time. I was still in love with coiling and couldn’t get texture and surface out of my head and as both of these fir so well with the overarching theme of Landscape for the show it just made sense to pursue this in as many ways as I could do, building on the things I had already done on my MA to date. I have never had the opportunity to do any reduction firing before so wanted to take the opportunity to do this for a piece for the show.

I began making this coiled vessel in my studio, I used a heavily grogged crank clay body which coils beautifully and because of the addition of lots of molochite it lends itself well to creating large shapes in a relatively short amount of time. I began the coiled vessel in a plaster former that I had made using a solid hemisphere as a pattern, I then continued to build this once the base had set up, once released from the former the external surface could can be smoothed using a serrated rib and a rubber rib in combination.

I took the piece to Uni to finish of and refine, then it went in a standard bisque firing. I used a range of house glazes, placing the piece on a banding wheel in the sink and smearing and pouring a combination of white, mottled green, Temmoku and shino glazes on the piece. I also applied some copper oxide wash. 

The results were both exciting and unexpected, reduction firing is all about the balance of heat and oxygen in the kiln chamber, where the oxygen level is restricted through increasing heat levels and restricting air intake by controlling vent openings the flames look for oxygen present in both the clay body and glaze materials, this reaction creates really interesting colours, tones and effects both in the surface of the clay body and in the glaze itself. A gas reduction firing would normally reach cone 10 around 1310 Deg C. It certainly makes some of the glazes darker, the Temmoku was a vivid red browm and a lot of the titanium white glaze seemed to disappear, though there are some lovely sections where you can see the reaction of the white with the clay body, the high grog content in this clay created a speckled effect in reaction with the white. The oxide was perhaps a little too heavily applied here, reduction firing will return the oxide back to it’s metallic state and this can be seen in aeas on this jar. 

What I learned/Next Steps:-

• Try and refine the large form further to reduce the material and overall weight
• Limit how much oxide to. use, especially in reduction
• Experiment with different clay bodies in reduction to see how they react
• Make an accurate record of glazes used
• Try glazing a large vessel on it’s side and fire on wads
• Go bigger!

Update **** This piece is now sold, this piece was sold at the Visions of Landscape Exhibition in April 2023