Recently in UNCC Studio Category

During this semester at the UNCC studio, the stoneware has started doing some weird stuff and I haven't figured out what the cause is. Numerous pieces (about 4) have cracked in a spiral pattern in the cone 10 glaze reduction kiln. The ware is dark along the crack lines, which indicates that the crack occurred before the reduction, but yet there were no signs of cracks after bisque, or during glazing. The cracks are all very clean and very sharp, more so than even S cracks tend to be. Does anyone have any clue as to what could be causing this problem to occur? Please email if you have any idea/suggestions.

All of my UNCC ceramics work, plus a set of 27 bowls I made at home, have now been posted to my work page at http://www.claymentality.net/index.php?pagekey=work&RecordDate=2006-12-17

Sunday evening I entered the UNCC ceramic studio with a small list of things I wished to accomplish:

• 12# Cylinder


• 12# Bowl


• 14", 12", 10" Platters


• 6#, 5#, 4# bowl set


• Attempt a tall bottle


• Additional 10" throws to complete project requirements (4# throws)

Of this list I managed to accomplish the 12# bowl (4 attemps, 3 survived) and I did a 20" platter (but nothing smaller). I tend to let myself loose focus on things in the ceramic world sometimes. I dive in with goals and manage to only accomplish a few things, or none at all if I get distracted by something else (like a shiney 20" Amaco Plastibat).

I still have to complete my 10" (or larger) cyllinder project before the end of the semester, but that should be a fun task to accomplish. The studio will be winding down for the semester in the next few weeks as the last several (probably about 25) loads of bisqueware are fired.