Blog Post #20

This past week has gone surprisingly smooth. As the semester is coming to an end in the next few weeks, I have to really focus on finishing strong. In ceramics, things have been turning pretty good so far. All of my pieces survived the bisque, which is the part I am always most worried about. Since every piece survived, the next step is glazing and wood-firing. I am super excited about glazing everything! I went to Kentucky Mudworks in Louisville for the first time and picked up some new glazes to test out. I bought some really fun glazes that I thought would go great with the lava lamps I made. I am also testing out some of the glaze samples I bought at NCECA. One of the sets is from Kentucky Mudworks and the other is from Mayco. I made 17 test tiles to get a better idea of how I want to glaze everything. Fingers crossed they come out exactly (or at least close) to what I am hoping for. Even if they don’t, maybe some of them will still turn out pretty cool. I will know for sure soon!

I am also helping out with the wood-kiln firing this semester! It was so fun last semester that I signed up to do it again. However, this time around I am helping with the loading process as well. I am trying to get more involved so I can learn as much as possible, especially since I plan on having a studio of my own one day. This semester I decided to make something for the wood-firing. I made a small bowl and used flashing slip to hopefully add some additional color variation during the firing. I am really looking forward to seeing how it turns out! I will be updating with some result for the next blog post!