Woodfired, on its side, perched on three scallop shells.

Ht: 14 cm, dia: 12.5cm

Fired with flashing slip, and oribe glaze. A number of us from Gladstone Clayworks went out to Brenda Sutton Mader’s studio in Alexandria, Ontario, where she has her Fred Olson woodfire kiln. Snow was still thick on the ground. The kiln fired in around 8 hours. Though the oribe may be underfired (according to the cones, the temperature in the kiln varied from cone 11 at the top, to cone 9 at the bottom – this piece was placed in the lower middle) I am pleased with the rough, volcanic effect where the glaze was thick, contrasting with the smooth surface of the rest of the pot.

Fired lying on its side, on three shells, the marks clearly visible on the finished piece (below):

Results from another kiln firing.Instead of laying a jet of tenmoku down and leaving most of the porcelain visible as I was doing in my earlier series, here I am using it as the base glaze all over the outer surface. However, I highlight the porcelain by leaving a margin of white at the base and at the top by using latex on those edges, and only then dipping the pot into the glaze. Next I lay down a squirt of white, followed by a rutile-baded glaze, giving the blue. Transparent glaze over the rim and down the inside. Fired to 1260°C; height: 6-7 cms, diameter slightly greater than height.

This is a pot from an anagama firing in Brussels in the spring of 2013.