Thoughts on process

To get myself out of a rut I started working in clay last year. I found to my delight that I remembered bits about the medium from long ago, but there's lots of unknown space to confront. The studio where I work is full of great energy and caring artists. We're a poor lot with city provided facilities, so there is a big need to share and be nice to each other which is just what I was seeking.

I had no idea that there were so many types of clay, so many firing temperatures, differences with glazes and other decorative techniques to explore. The first week in the studio I was exposed to pinch, slab and coil hand building techniques. As a person with wheel experience it was grand to get a sense of how the chemical makeup of clay works with dryer building approaches.

After a couple of months I settled into the wheel practice as many of my studio mates seem to prefer hand building and there is generally a wheel available. In early sessions I whipped out a lot of product without much thought to process. I concentrated on trying throw a piece that I had conceived of beforehand, but not much else was in the process. Over time I realized that spending the week before looking at other work would make the wheel time more productive and thoughtful.

Turning to thoughts on process itself I find that there is designing and conceiving of the work; this includes materials which consist of clay type, any slip finishes or clay decorations, firing temperature, type of and colors of glaze and any other decorative process that might need to occur at any time. Start to finish a piece is created, trimmed or finished when leather hard, dries to hardness, fired to bisqueware, finished with glaze and fired a second time. It is possible to add more glaze and fire again. There are also some special processes for print transfers, use of wax to keep colors and unglazed sections discrete, raku and more.