Intro
Continue to my project developed in Understanding Context 1, In Understanding Context 2 I will change my brief from Small Favors to Collect. The reason I would like to change my brief to Collect because I think I have well explored the Small Favors brief, I want to create my final pieces in a large scale, and I believe I can expand more of my creativity in this brief.
First of all, I will develop more ideas into my project. I have the line element previously in my works, which is initially inspired by Jōmon period. The lines play a big role in creating pattern designs in my works, but in Understanding Context 2 I want to pause and explore another surface decorations in my practice, which is glaze decorations. I will focus on colours and textures of surface decorations in ceramics.
Recently I am interested in special effects glazes and colours, I want to experiment and create glazes to use for my project. I am especially fall into gloop glazes, crawl glazes, and coloured slips.
Inspirations That Inform My Practice
I name the pictures below my "daily objects observations". The colours and textures or shapes from the things I saw in my daily life drew my attention, and they immediately inspired me in my head. Visual information influenced me day by day, the images are strongly affecting my creations and my sense of aesthetics. The objects that inspired me often included food, living creatures, and nature. The elements that I was always drawn to are their surface's texture and the pattern nature builds itself. I can always link them back to my creations.
I also define my interest in Biomorphic forms. The definition from MoMA is "Derived from the Greek words bios (life) and morphe (form), the term refers to abstract forms or images that evoke naturally occurring forms such as plants, organisms, and body parts."
I wish the final ceramics pieces that I create will have uncomfortable beauty in them. I have chosen to use crawl glaze and special effects glazes in my work, they somehow have been stated as 'imperfect' glazes or failures, but I am especially attracted by their 'imperfection'.
An Important Show That Have A Big Impact On My Practice
'Strange Clay' Exhibtion in London has inspired me a lot and have greatly influenced my practice. The exhibition have showed many ceramicist that are using clay as a material to create unusual ceramic works. Looking at the colour palette of the works, and the unexpected ways of making ceramics. The works are weird which leads me to think of new ways of creating works, and materials innovations that shock traditional making. One of the ceramicist that on show- Takuro Kuwata has became one of my favourite ceramicist.
Price Market Research -Collect 2023
I went to Collect 2023 and done some price research, to see how the art pieces price in the crafts fair. I wish to make sculptural pieces for this project and as for my final pieces, so I especially looked in the large sculptural pieces in the fair. After looking at the price, I could understand more how to value my pieces.
This ceramic sculpture is priced £3,750, The piece is very large, and it requires delicate techniques and unique ideas.
The small round water droppers are priced £330 each.
This glass vessel is priced £14,335. This piece requires a high skilled technique. And is huge.
This ceramic vessel is priced £5,850. It used materials like porcelain and copper, with soda firing techniques. The aesthetic of this vessel is high, and it is very unique.
I forgot the price of this large ceramic moon jar, but it is approximately more than £10,000. The artist of this sculpture is very famous. And this piece requires a lots of materials and have a lots of surface decorations. It is one of my favourite.
Final Pieces Price Calculations
Price For My Final Piece (Moon Jar)
Product cost: Materials+ expense-
porcelain￡20 + glaze￡20 + packaging￡10 + tools￡30 + firing￡30 =￡110
Monthly living expenses (groceries, rent, utility bills...): ￡1500
How much I need to earn per month: ￡3000
Money to earn per product: ￡90
Final product cost: ￡200
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Product direct sales price: ￡200 X 2.5 =￡500
Net profit: ￡300
Final direct sales price: ￡500
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3rd party sales price (gallery): sales price ￡500 - 30% commission￡150 = gross income ￡350
Net profit: gross income ￡350 - product cost ￡200 = ￡150
Final 3rd party sales price (gallery): ￡500 + ￡150 = ￡650
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Price For My Final Piece (Tea Bowl)
Product cost: Materials+ expense-
porcelain￡10 + glaze￡10 + packaging￡10 + tools￡30 + firing￡30 =￡90
Monthly living expenses (groceries, rent, utility bills...): ￡1500
How much I need to earn per month: ￡3000
Money to earn per product: ￡90
Final product cost: ￡180
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Product direct sales price: ￡180 X 2.5 =￡450
Net profit: ￡270
Final direct sales price: ￡450
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3rd party sales price (gallery): sales price ￡450 - 30% commission￡135 = gross income ￡315
Net profit: gross income ￡315 - product cost ￡180 = ￡135
Final 3rd party sales price (gallery): ￡450 + ￡135 = ￡585
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Artist Research/ Practitioners That Informs My Practice
1) Takuro Kuwata
The dramatic colours features. Pop colours usage. Crackle glaze. Slips
2) Cory Brown
The bright and bold colours, gloop glaze, foam glaze, dramatic sculpture shape, and how the glaze itself form the sculpture.
Some Sketches/ Drawings Of Ideas
Final Pieces Sketches
I have chosen to use a pop colour palette, I want the colour to be bold and have a big contrast. Some of the colours are inspired by the 'Daily objects' that I saw in my daily life, but I also want man-made features in them.
Testers Making Process
I have some glazes that I have bought a few years ago, which are some special effects glazes I want to apply in my final pieces, I will mix the glazes by myself for the final pieces, but I want to test these glazes first and see how well they look. I only have a very little amount of them, so I apply these glazes on some miniature pots to see how will they behave in a new way.
I have thrown some miniature vessels as the glaze test tiles. They are stoneware and porcelain.
I mix the special effects glazes and some other glazes that have colours and also mix the special effects glazes with colour stains, the colours such as deep blue, red and yellow. I am also exploring colour slip applications.
The Final Look Of The Testers
Testers Making Process
I have also decided to make sculptures for my final pieces, I am trying to hand built vessels to make the form. I try to make some small versions of them, to see how will they look before go big.
Special Effects Glaze Making
I have done some research on how to make special effects glazes. I look online and read some books in the library, finally, I found a book called "Dry Glazes" that I decided to follow the receipts it provided. I chose the formula 'SE35 Dry Crawl 3' and 'SE7 Shrink and Crawl' as the crawl glazes that I will apply to the final pieces. On the other hand, I also mixed 'CO1A Bronze Gold' and 'SE33 Kim's Dry Crawl' for the tester, but will not apply to the final pieces. Maybe I will use them for other projects in the future.
Below are in order 'SE35 Dry Crawl 3' and 'SE7 Shrink and Crawl', the first one has fired to cone 6 and the second one has fired to cone 06, according to the book receipts. I like the results, I realised I could guess what the crawl will look like before firing them because the crawl is actually the same with the cracks when I apply the glazes. So next time I will apply the glazes until I am happy with the cracks before I fire them. Now I am happy to use these glazes for my final pieces.
This is SE7 at cone 6. I want to know if SE7 fired to cone 6 will have what changes, so I refire again, and it becomes overfired and the crawl somehow disappeared. I like the effect, and the cobalt carbonate has changed its colours to bright blue.
These are 'CO1A Bronze Gold' and 'SE33 Kim's Dry Crawl' fired to cone 6. I am happy with the result, I will use them in the future.
Final Pieces Making Process
I decided to use porcelain to make my final pieces. I mix the porcelain with grog, to make the clay body stronger, and easier for hand-building. I use the pinch pot method to create the objects, for the moon jar, I make two separate pinched bowl shapes and stick them together afterwards, to have a round moon jar shape. For the tea bowl, I pinched the tea bowl shape. I carve the clay out to create the foot rings for both of the objects and refine the surface and shape at last.
Waited for a day to let the objects leather hard, then I apply the underglazes and start to do the surface decorations. I use a palette knife to apply the porcelain slips on the objects, just like applying acrylic when painting. This is also one of the major tools I want to use in this project too. I have enjoyed so much when I do the decorations, the feeling is mixed that I am making sculptures and also making paintings. I use the gravity in the slips and let them slide down until it's solid and stop sliding.
After the whole object is bone dry, I fire them to bisque. After bisque, I start to apply the glazes as the final stage. I mix the premixed crawl glazes with colour stains. These are some stains I am using.
I measure the percentage of stains and glaze, I added 8-9% of stains into the glaze. Some parts of the glaze are poured, to have a flow down and dripping effect, the cracks will also be very neat. In some parts, I brush a few layers of glaze to have a thick layer of glaze, to have some bigger cracks. I refine the areas until I am fully happy with the cracks in the glaze.
I found out the crawl glaze is very fragile and would easily chip off if I accidentally touch them, so I handle the pieces very carefully. Wait until they have dried and I fire them to cone 6.
Final Piece (Tea Bowl)
Final Piece (Moon Jar)
Reflection
Inspired by my "Daily object observations", these pieces have fully presented the uncomfortable beauty I designed to be and explored the Biomorphic theme. I am very happy with the final outcome of the 'SE35 Dry Crawl 3' crawl glaze, the cracks perfectly came out like I expected. But for the 'SE7 Shrink and Crawl', as I have fired it to cone 6 but not the original cone 06, it melts more and the cracks disappeared, which I am not quite happy with. On the other hand, the colours came out brightly, which I am very satisfied with. I will keep using colour stains in my future practice.
I will keep on learning about glazes in my future practice and hope to develop my own glazes. Crawl glazes and other special effect glazes are also what I will keep on using in my future practices. I wish I could find my own unique way to present glaze. Before that, I have to work more and explore more with glazes.
References
1) http://www.takurokuwata.com/
2) https://salon94.com/artists/takuro-kuwata/
3) https://corybrownceramics.com/
4) https://www.clayakar.com/pages/artist-cory-brown
6) Jernegan, J. 'Dry Glazes', London.
