Mid-term work Fall 2010

The first picture is of a piece I was working on since mid July and went under more heat than I wanted, but I guess that's part of learning how the different gas kilns around here work.  The second and third photos are of a piece that is in the bone dry stage and will be put in the electric kiln for a bisque firing next week.  I have ordered some commercial glazes that are cone six.  I decided to order the glazes versus making them so I could save some time and work on my work.  The last photo is of a large sculpture that I am working on.  With this piece I am exploring scale as well as repetition to create a larger piece.  The glazes fired on the "grate" area is a cone 6 glaze that I made up from one of our shop glazes.  All the pieces were fired to cone 6 in oxidation (electric kiln), after their initial bisque firing in which I fired them at cone 08 in oxidation.  All the work is built by hand using slabs, except for the screws on the outer rim of the grate area, which were made using a press mold and then attached to the form after scoring and applying slip to the scored areas.  I also made up a cone 6 porcelain casting slip that I plan on casting next week.  I'll post images of how that goes in my next blog.