A friend of a friend is a geologist. The “glaze” on these pieces is a slip from a clay dug from glacial deposits in southern Wisconsin. Maquekita Shale, he calls it. Finest of the fine… super plastic… slate green… just love having my hands in the stuff. I’ve done a few fusion tests, too, as I’m currently taking a glaze design class (that’s a whole other series of posts!); I think it needs more silica to get more of the iron (and whatever else) into solution. More fusion tests upcoming. Anyway, these are all soda fired. I’ve got nearly fifty of these cups now. These couple pictures don’t even tell half the story.

Some of this, some of that. I also fired a dozen cups on that “fat persons” idea, which is alive and well. I’m looking forward to working on that a lot more. But I have some much better photos of them.

A few of the shale cups and a few of the fat person cups. See what I mean about the silica? The shale cups are fun to throw; I’m purposefully being quick and loose about them, it’s more fun and great practice too. Definitely helps force me to trim faster!

John got a shot of me just as I looked up. I didn’t know it had been taken until seeing it in my email (the other photos on this post are his, too: thanks John!) The cup I’m holding is the largest, and I’ve layered a crackle shino over the shale. Wasn’t sure if it’d end up in a pile in the bottom of the cup; surprisingly, everything kind of held together. The inside is a nice swirl, too.

They’re nice to drink from, too. A little wine, but I like my cup to hold twice what I put in it, so they’re perfect for a bit of whiskey/bourbon/scotch. Here it’s sitting on top of a pile of catch slabs (not mine). I’m so pleased with the growth I’ve seen in the class as individuals and as a whole. People are really getting into playing and experimenting, and it’s great to (finally!) have a door opened for that. I’ve been working on my own of course, but there’s an incredible synergy to doing it together.

Here’s a formal shot. You’d never know this went through a gas-fueled soda kiln. Yum.

The Soda To Wood class has been great; people have done some great experiments with adding materials to clay, both organic and ceramic. I added materials to stoneware: neph sy, NC-4 spar, amblygonite, petalite, custer spar, redart, goldart, cornish stone, black iron oxide. Here are some test pods. I’ve also got two dozen teabowls that went through the wood kiln. Photos… sometime!