Glazing bisqueware (clay object after the first firing) is very different from painting an object. You can’t see which texture and color (effects) you are applying during glazing. Applying different glazes, slips or oxide washes, the ceramicist must compose the colors in his or her mind.
In doing so, he/she must take into account that overlaps of glazes do not always lead to a mixed color, the thickness of the glaze effects color and/or texture and the application method (spraying, pouring over, brushing, etc.) may or may not lead to desired effects. Just to name a few variables. So the disappointment is great when the thought experiment does not match the final result.
I haven’t even mentioned one of the most important “wildcards”: the glaze firing. To tame this beast, many digital tools have been developed over the past 20 years. The most important of course is the (computerized) kiln control. however, this does not make the Seger cones superfluous.
Continue reading Seger cones, old tech in the “digital age”
Does this bother me? Of course not, everyone is free to have his own muse. But where most artists use these goddesses as a reflection of humanity as inspiration, I think for the ceramist only one of the nine muse “Urania” (the muse of astronomy, forerunner of all science), is a source for his or her work.
