My work begins on the wheel. I throw each piece individually and work in porcelain. I prefer simple, yet elegant forms forms as they make the best canvas for my glazes- without texture to interrupt glaze flow and crystal growth. The glazes are the real stars of the show. I’m primarily drawn to achieving crystalline growth and iridescence- what can I say, I like shiny and sparkly things.

Developing glazes and experimentation is a significant part of my studio practice. At this point I’ve done thousands of tests- sometimes making small, methodical changes to the chemistry and sometimes acting a bit like a kid with a chemistry set (what will happen if i mix these things together). Both methods have panned out equally for me, but the serendipitous style tends to be more fun.

A bit about crystal growth-

Crystal growth can occur in glazes when the chemistry and the firing conditions are right. Certain glaze materials - specifically zinc and manganese in my glazes- can crystallize along with silica in the molten glaze if their concentrations are right. You can think of it like making a super saturated sugar solution and getting rock candy, only it occurs at a much higher temperature. The glaze is applied to the piece and then fired in an electric kiln to about 2350F- at this point the glaze is fully melted and quite fluid- you’ve made your saturated solution, only instead of sugar, its zinc/manganese and silica. To allow crystal growth to occur, the kiln is cooled slightly- usually in the range of 2200-1600F, and kept at this range for several hours. At these temperatures the glaze is still molten and it creates the right conditions for crystal to precipitate in the molten glaze.

There is a bit of randomness to the crystal growing process- but I can manipulate variables that will influence the resulting design to the crystals. Varying the temperature in the crystal growing phase of the firing creates different shapes and patterns within the crystal. At the high end of the crystal growing range the crystals are slender and needle like, as you decrease the temperature the crystals will fill out more- double axehead, a sort of pansy flower shape, to very circular. The longer you keep the kiln in these crystal growing temperatures, the larger the crystals will grow. Additionally each temperature change in the crystal growing phase changes the crystal adding a new band akin to a tree growth ring. I use typical ceramic colorants (metal oxides and carbonates) to achieve different colors.

In addition to having the right concentration of zinc or manganese, the crystalline glaze process is helped by having a very fluid, runny glaze. In order to prevent the runny glaze from fusing the pot to the kiln shelf, I fire each piece on a ceramic riser with attached tray to “catch” the run off glaze. These “catchers” are also thrown and must match the size of pot’s foot. They are temporarily glued in place with a mixture of glue and clay and carefully removed after firing. After removing the catcher, I grind and polish the foot of the piece with diamond lapidary disks.