A Record of Reaction

Artist Statement

My final piece is a jar with four smaller jars attached to its outer wall, each finished with a different glaze. Rather than presenting a single functional object, I wanted this piece to act as a small system that reveals different material behaviors of ceramics within one form. This idea developed directly from the geology concepts we explored in class, especially how clay forms, transforms, and responds to heat.

Through the course, I learned that clay is produced through the weathering of silicate minerals such as feldspar. Different clay minerals have different crystal structures, which create varying spaces for water to enter. This explains why clays differ in water absorption, plasticity, and expansion. Understanding this helped me move beyond treating clay as a neutral material and instead see it as a reactive geological substance. When we studied bisque firing, I learned that physically bound water is lost and that the clay body shrinks significantly during firing. Uneven shrinkage, especially at joints, is a major cause of cracking. Because of this, I realized that combining different clay bodies in one piece would be structurally unstable due to their different shrinkage rates. Instead, I chose to work with a single clay body, B-Mix, which I was most familiar with, and use glaze variation to explore material differences.

My making process involved repeated testing, revision, and scaling down. At first, I attempted to throw a larger, functional jar as the main body. However, because clay absorbs water quickly, the number of times I could lift the walls was limited, and the form often became unstable. I responded by reducing the scale of the main jar and creating several smaller “mini” jars as experimental units. Once all the pieces reached a leather-hard stage, I carefully cut and attached the smaller jars to the main body using water and scoring. The connections were particularly fragile, reinforcing my understanding of stress points and shrinkage in ceramic forms. Glazing became another important site of experimentation. Because the piece could not be dipped, I brushed the glazes on, which required careful control of thickness. I learned that even at the bone-dry stage, different areas of the clay body absorb glaze differently. Overwiping with a wet sponge reduced absorption, leading to uneven glaze surfaces. Through testing leftover pieces, I observed that glazes applied too thinly exposed the clay body, while overly thick layers melted excessively and pooled due to gravity during firing.

In the final piece, I used Floating Blue, Floating Blue layered with Great White, and Floating Blue layered with Iron Red to explore how glaze chemistry responds to heat and material interaction. Floating Blue contains cobalt and rutile, and it appears red before firing but turns blue after firing as the metal oxides melt and reorganize in the kiln. When layered with Great White, the glaze becomes a deeper and more stable blue, showing how different glaze bases affect color intensity. When Floating Blue is layered with Iron Red, yellow and golden patterns appear due to rutile reacting during firing, creating textured, mineral-like surfaces. Together, these glaze results reveal how chemical composition and firing conditions transform surface color and pattern. By using glaze as a record of reaction rather than decoration, the final work makes the hidden scientific processes of ceramics visible through color and texture.