Using Ash: Accidental Innovation

When I first started looking at clay seriously I was enchanted by the use and appearance of ash glazes. I think of all the glaze techniques they do the most to highlight making clay objects through the process of inferno-like heat.

So I asked my friend Nancy Berliner to bring me some ash from her fireplace in New Hampshire. She brought me bagloads and I started using it right away. For a year or so I rolled ash into the terra cotta we used in the lab. I was quite happy with the results, though I fired at a much lower temperature (cone 04-about 1945 degrees F) than I needed. Here are a few examples of my work from that series:

You can see I didn't know what I was doing. It wasn't until I was at the "boot camp" residency at Medalta last year that I came to understand you need a much hotter kiln to melt the ash to get the glaze. Lucky for me I didn't fire these pieces hotter or they would have ruined our electric kiln at BU!