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| Rynne Tanton |
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Having been a teacher of ceramics and practising potter for a considerable number of years I am now in my fifth year of full time potting and just love having the time to fully explore some of the techniques and ideas which have interested me. Strong clean forms and textures have been a major key to my work in the past although physical textures now includes visual textures in more recent work.
The latest interest and exploration is in macrocrystal glazes and all the permutations one can achieve with them. Aside from the challenge of creating the crystals themselves, the aesthetic problem of how to marry a glaze which has very strong characteristics to a good form is an interesting one. "A glaze is just a glaze and equal in importance to the pot it lives on". Sometimes though the crystals just demand to have a clean simple canvas!
Macro crystalline glazes
The crystals formed in the glazes on these pots are zinc silicate (willmanite) and are produced by first ensuring that there is an appropriate amount of zinc and silica in the glaze make up and then in carefully controlling the firing cycle. The kiln is first taken up to a temperature where the glaze melts and then dropped approximately 150 degrees to a stage where the glaze is viscous but not runny.
At this point the temperature is held fairly constant for several hours to enable the crystals to grow. Slight variations in temperature in rise and fall during this holding period create rings and halos. The different colours are created using different metal oxides in the glaze mix - cobalt for blue, copper for green, titanium for white and so on.
The aspect of crystal glazes that fascinates potters is the unpredictability of the process. Each kiln firing produces different results often with many failures. Every piece is therefore quite unique and unpredictable.
Flower Dishes
On a conceptual level these dishes represent for me the heat and parched nature of much of Australia’s landscape juxtaposed against the effects of occasional rain when plant life blossoms with all the accompanying vibrant colours.
Technically, I enjoy the challenge of making use of traditional stoneware glazes – copper reds, purple and pinks, chun whites, celadons, tenmokus and so on. There is something very satisfying in extending the way one uses well used and known materials. I also enjoy the eclectic nature of the technique with the gold luster which is close to jeweller’s cloiconné and which helps to make the colours sing.
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