Phil Elson offers some thoughts on tea and early memories
I am writing about teapots. I make many more bowls than I do teapots, however there is something about teapots; something that evokes early memories, the very earliest memories. Mothers and teapots, they seemed to go together. Mothers, and friends around for cups of tea; and that shape – that round teapot shape – always there, always about the place. I remember it; remember its roundness – white with blue drawings and a stain from the tip of the spout down to the base. It is in my sea of memories; permanently, it seems. And now I make teapots; not white with blue drawings, and, hopefully, devoid of brown stains. This is what pots can do for us; take us to places that otherwise may be inaccessible – places that remind us of the roundness of life.
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Technical | Stoneware Glazes
Greg Daly develops a stoneware palette
I t can be quite easy. Taking a stoneware base recipe, in this case Bernard Leach’s Cone 8 recipe, I will make alterations to develop two distinct glaze palettes. The seascape image (see below) will form the basis for both surfaces and colours.
How do you go about creating your own surface images with glaze from a passing image you have seen or something you’ve collected? The inspiration may be very simple: a black stone, partly wet; the colour of a leaf – pinks, greens, browns and greys; the pastel colours of a fabric you are wearing.
My starting point is to carefully observe what I see in the colour and texture. Is the surface glossy, satin or matte? How many tones of a colour are there? Is the colour even, or does it change with patterns or movement?
The image selected will be the initial basis for the development of glazes. For this example I have chosen an image of a rock pool where there are two distinct colours and surfaces. Firstly, there is the water with its colours, blue and turquoise and the movement of the water’s surface. A high alkaline copper glaze will be needed for the turquoise, along with a cobalt blue glaze. Applying these over each other should give the desired effect. Secondly, there is sandstone, covered with a seaweed growth, with its matte surface of sandy brown moving through to the mustard green of the seaweed; two quite different surfaces and colours. Each could be developed individually, but I am drawn to the contrast of these two opposites.
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