Egyptian Paste

Egyptian Paste/Faience - Drying

Egyptian Paste after the firing (right one has gold luster too)

About 2 years ago in my Art of Ancient Egypt class I did a research project on a Faience amulet from Ancient Egypt.  Although the project was meant to be a simple 3 page worksheet: what is it... where is it from... what is it made of... etc.  I turned in a 12 page research project, most of which consisted of 6 pages breaking down the chemical components of the material of Egyptian Faience.  Ancient Egyptian Faience is not homogenous, there are many different types including glass Faience, and a later form with the addition of more clay and sand enabling craftsman to actually throw pots with it. But this did not happen til the Greco-Roman period. The traditional forms of Faience (what we now call Egyptian paste) had very little clay content, and only about 10% fine sand to help the material hold its structure. 

It is a self-glazing material.  Despite what a lot of archaeologists and Egyptologists say, it is not glazed ceramic, a more apt description would be to simply call it glaze, all by itself.  Essentially it is an alkali based glaze.  As it dries the salt (alkali) migrates to the surface of the piece. When it fires the colorant (most often either copper carbonate or cobalt oxide) are drawn to the surface as well and flux with the alkali to create the hard outer shell.

Although we do not have the ancient recipes, there are a number of recipes available online that can duplicate it pretty well.  I got mine from Robin Hopper's book The Ceramic Spectrum.

I had seen many amulets and bowls in Egyptian Faience in my research so I made a bunch of shapes: hippos, scarabs and small press-molded bowls.  I then painted manganese dioxide on the outside of the dried pieces not exactly knowing how it would react, but it fluxed right along with the alkali and the copper.  The Egyptian paste is fired to between cone 012-08 (different recipes call for different temperatures)

On some of the pieces I added gold luster and fired again to cone 018, also as an experiment. It worked beautifully!

Egypt-Ware... It Emerges.

Jan 29, 2011 We Give Each Other Courage

The Egypt-ware has made its final journey through its 5th firing (should have been 4, but had some problems).

There are over 30 pieces, some consisting of groupings of 2 to 7 pots within each of those "pieces".  It was a long and laborious project, but worth every minute, and worth all the blood (litterally), sweat and tears that went into it.

Along with this project, I was also able to get a new and official website launched with fantastic professional photos (www.genevamillion.com).  The photos were taken by Cap Prince, who did a wonderful job, but you can see that for yourself.

The new job at hand is compiling this all into a cohesive portfolio for Graduate Schools, and hoping it's suitable and relevant enough that I'll get in (somewhere!).  As far as I'm concerned this subject is amazingly important to the world right now.  I just hope other people see it the same way...

Jan 30, 2011 Peaceful Revolution (Detail)

Feb 3, 2011 Bringing People Together

Feb 4, 2011 A Day of Departure (Detail)

Artist Statement

I have spent years devoted to the study of the ceramic craft in its historic applications. I see the use of clay as a medium as having its own symbolic meaning; the idea of creating something from nothing, the forming of a vessel of life from a mound of dirt and filling it with life.  Images and concepts seen in Ancient Egypt have been the basis for my research both academically and in my art.

My ceramic work uses historic ceramic forms, technology, and pottery representing ‘living Hieroglyphs’ to tell the stories of Egypt.  My work parallels Egypt’s Ancient Intermediate periods, or times of disunion and chaos, with their current conflicts. This comparison is done through the act of layering, and multiple firings. Each work reveals layers of history, each building on top of the other, growing from the previous, changing yet remaining inevitably the same.

Egypt-Ware Round #1...

 This new series of work has been quite the learning experience. First I thought three firings was a lot.  Then I came to learn that these decals that I printed and fired on at cone 018 didn't fully adhere to the glaze.  This was partially my fault.  I really like my glazes to be more semi-matte or sometimes possibly semi-gloss, but I don't really like high gloss glazes too often because it sacrifices the detail and dimension of the form.  Anyway, the problem with this is that the decals don't flux as well into semi-matte glazes as they do into glossy ones.

 I had hoped to be able to fire the decal and the gold luster in one firing, so that I could eliminate the need for a fourth firing, but it looks like this won't be possible.  I was informed that the decals will need to be fired higher: up to 01 or even 1.  But this will definitely burn out the gold luster, which means that it will need to be reapplied (at $30 an ounce) and refired at cone 018.  Oh boy! Definitely a learning experience.  But, that's what clay is all about.  And even though the decal didn't completely adhere on this round, it still looks amazing!

I also realized how well the decal shows up on darker surfaces, which was something I was not expecting either, and how it doesn't show up quite so well on red and lighter brown surfaces.  It was also great to learn that the gold didn't work quite as well on top of the decal as it did directly on top of the glazed surface.  I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that the iron in the decal didn't completely flux or what, but it's still great information to store away for later, and experiment with again.

So, despite some of the little mistakes that occurred on this round, I'd say overall it was a successful venture.  I look forward to exploring this process on the new clays I just purchased.  There is also much more news to cover in Egypt, historic and modern.  And it might be a good idea to create a glossy clear glaze in the near future as well.

Layers of History - Making and Applying custom decals

 I am now on the third "layer" of these new Egyptian History/politics inspired pieces.  The first was the Slip-Inlay, and underglaze.  Then, in the last step I applied multiple glazes to each piece, at least 2, sometimes 3 or 4 glazes per piece.  This step actually had me thoroughly stressed out, because, although I do perform glaze tests, I usually don't test how glazes layer and mix with others.  I was also playing with three different types of clay on this round: Manganese, Porcelain and B-Mix with sand, both thrown and slip cast.  The way the glazes responded in all these different factors was unknown to me until I unloaded the kiln.  Thankfully they all came out pretty great, the weird color combinations I had tried, worked well together.

The next step was now applying decals that I printed from the UCB Studio's HP Laserjet.  There really is nothing special about this printer, only that HP laserjets toner has iron in it. 

I started by scanning in Tweets and images from a great book called "Tweets from Tahrir" as well as finding some great photos online from the Egyptian revolution and aftermath.  I positioned them on an 8.5x11" art board in Photoshop and kept in mind the size for the majority of my pieces.  I was able to fit everything for 20 pieces onto 5 decal papers.  Everything that is scanned or taken from the internet needs to be converted to B/W and made high contrast before it is printed onto the paper.

Applying it is simple too.  If you have done this with commercial decals, I'm not sure how similar or different it is, having never used them before. 
You'll need a shallow bowl with water, a sponge, and some kind of card, or hard edge to remove the bubbles.

1. Cut the decal as close to the image as possible with scissors or a blade
2. Submerge it in the water, and let it soak for a few minutes.  You'll know it's done when the decal image starts to slide off the paper backing.
3. Keep the decal image and paper together and gently remove them from the water.
4. Slowly slide the decal image off of the paper and onto your glazed ceramic surface.
5. Use the sponge to softly push it down, from the middle towards the outside of the image.  And do the same with the hard edge or card to remove all bubbles.
6. Then fire the piece to Cone 018 - the iron will flux into your already glazed piece and voila! You have a dark sepia-like image of your custom made decal.

1 bag of clay...

Not bad for a days work...

Today I played with a new clay (for me), Navajo wheel, which I picked up at Clay Planet last weekend. I sat down and threw one whole bag, and absolutely loved it. Very workable and a beautiful color. Can't wait to see how it reacts to my glazes and the firing.

Slip Inlay and Sgraffito - Hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphs applied with slip inlay - in greenware state

One of the many decorating techniques that I learned at the fabulous San Jose City College was Slip Inlay.  This was actually courtesy of the wonderful (and late) Julia Terr. She was a visiting artist at SJCC and enlightened our class with her techniques in throwing and decorating.  This included: goblets and pitchers, glazes and, of course, slip inlay.

I became fascinated by her methods and decided to explore some of her techniques in my own work.  I made some of my own style of goblets (as seen in the previous posting).  I also re-created the beautiful green glaze, which she supplied the recipe for (and which was also my first foray into glaze making).  And I explored slip inlay.  Of course at SJCC we were somewhat limited by the slips, having only black, white, blue and green.  However, here at UC Berkeley we are blessed to have a wide array of colored slips.  This includes metallic colored slips (which I prefer due to the sheen produced in Mid – High range firing) as well as those colored by stains. 

The image above shows greenware bowls, and one cup that have been decorated using the metallic slips: Cobalt Oxide, Manganese Dioxide, Red Iron Oxide, Black Copper Oxide, and Rutile Oxide.  Most of these bowls were thrown in Babu Porcelain and decorated with the Slip inlay method that I learned from Julia.  If you've never done it before this is how it is done:
1. use a needle or sgraffito tool to carve a pattern or image into the surface (pretty deep). 
2. Then fill it in with the slip with a large brush, you will need to apply multiple coats.  The slip is thick enough when you can no longer see the carved image through it. 
3. let it dry sufficiently, dry side of leather hard, almost bone dry.
4. Then scrape the slip off with a metal rib.  Some of the clay surface will come off too.  This is why the carving should be pretty deep.

On the last bowl I used the sgraffito method, with is even easier and can be used with slips, underglazes and glazes. I just painted a thick layer of the slip over the leather hard surface of the bowl.  Then used the sgraffito tool to draw and image into it, thereby carving away the slip and revealing the clay underneath. 

Egypt's modern Intermediate Period - through pottery (In progress)

The upcoming few posts will most likely be a series of in progress photos, thoughts, and comments...

Currently I'm still decorating greenware.  I've done some slip inlay and some underglaze painting on bone dry ware.  Basically, the idea is that this lowest layer will reflect the historical Egypt.  Nearly every piece features a phrase or set of words in Egyptian Hieroglyphs (I spent the last year learning to read and write Middle Egyptian).

After the bisque firing I will be layering multiple glazes on each piece.  Some areas will have transparent glazes and others more opaque glazes.  It's all experimentation at this point.  After the cone 6 glaze firing I'm going to apply decals of images from the January/February 2011 Egyptian Revolution and decals of actual Tweets that were posted during that time period and fire at 018 (The Tweets have been scanned from the book Tweets from Tahrir). 



One of the basic concepts is the element of communication: pottery to Tweets. Another is the element of weapons and parallels between historical events and those of the modern conflicts. History really does repeat itself.

Bringing History into the Present

During a recent heart-to-heart with Ehren Tool we discussed my two majors: Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations (Egyptology) and Ceramics and why there is not more of a crossover between the two.  I've been putting some thought and research into this and have decided to explore a new avenue in my work.  Although I have greatly improved my skills in building, throwing and glaze techniques in the last few years, Ehren is right. With my background in Egyptian history, art and politics and with the recent political turmoil I really should be doing more to bring the two together. Soon to come will be images of the first wave of this work, in progress.  I feel this will be a source of years of material and I hope that it will prove to spread awareness about this great and historic country.

Intentional flaws... Is this possible?

In the last kiln I fired I used a number of new glazes.  One of which was from the Electric Firing book, called Alligator Green. I layered it over my glossy licorice black to see what kind of effect I would get.  The cup on the left is more or less the effect I expected. However the one on the right did some unexpected things. I think this could be because of the underfiring that caused me to have to unload and reload then refire the kiln. Although this was unexpected, it is definitely interesting. But could it be attempted again with the same results?

Ceramics and Patriotism i.e. Clay and Firecrackers

Since today was the 4th of July the studio was pretty dead.  In order to liven things up, and in honor of the 4th of July, Maile decided to blow-up small balls of clay.  Of course firecrackers are illegal in California, so this was all done in a contained area - very safe of course!



Maile's idea was to embed a small firecracker in a fist size ball of clay and put it inside a plaster mold, basically casting the mold with the exploded clay bits. The result of which is to the right... a busted mold. oops!

After Ehren's objections about this configuration and claims that this was virtually a bomb, we switched molds to a large open neck amphora mold.  The procedure itself took a while to get perfect. Lots of turning the mold, up and over and eventually taking it off the table all together.  The open neck also caused problems with the explosive noise and projectile clay.  We eventually learned to cover the neck with a piece of wood, but it was tricky getting the lighter in and out before it exploded. Eventually Maile just about got it down, see the video to see how she did it. 

Donupology update...

The newest "Donupology" was constructed yesterday. As I said before, practice makes perfect. Not that this is perfect, in any way. But, it was loads easier to put together than the previous two.

Donuts and Topology

"Donupology #1" With Waxing Brown Glaze

"Donupology #2" With Rutile Bone Glaze

Last Semester my experiments with throwing and altering led to a combination of throwing donuts and Topology, what I call "Donupology".

The first of these experiments is the image to the right.  I get my best ideas when I'm driving (as previously mentioned) and this one came to me on just such an occasion.  I had started to work with throwing donuts months before, (throwing and altering by cutting them apart and looping them over other closed forms). This was a whole different ball game.

The piece to the left was my second attempt, but I made the mistake of letting the donuts get too hard before trying to construct them.  It broke apart quite a few times. It is also more difficult than you'd think to keep the two donuts the same height and general width (not circumference).  This one did not fit these parameters and was hard to construct.  The other issue with these is that due to the precarious joints they need to dry really slowly, and need to be turned every few hours to make sure they dry evenly.

Two newly thrown Donuts soon to be made into a "Donupology"

 Practice makes perfect though, as they always say... I'm hoping that this next batch of donuts leads to a spectacular "donupology".

The final issue that will need to be resolved with the last one will be the firing. With the last two, the stilts ended up getting stuck to the bottom of the pieces.  After seeing that the glaze had run on the first, I decided to go with a very stable glaze on the second and wiped it thin to keep that from happening.  No such luck.  Although the glaze did not run, the piece may have been too heavy for the stilts to support it and it ended up bending them into the glaze. Ehren wasn't (too) mad, he just said, "That's what your materials fee is for." Thank God!"

Any tips on how to prevent this in the future would be greatly appreciated.  As a side note, I would rather not leave the bottom unglazed.  I would like it to have the illusion of being a continuous piece and I think a line along the bottom without glaze destroys this. One plus is that on this new one the stilts provide a really nice, stable support to help keep it from rolling. There's always a silver lining!

Playing with Glazes

FileMaker Pro - Glaze Database

Inquiry & Experimentation:
Another thing that I really enjoy experimenting with is glazes.  As I mentioned in the intro to this Blog, I began my Clay education working in a studio that fired Cone 10 Reduction (San Jose City College).  Since then I have been virtually obsessed with the results that can be achieved through different types of glazing processes.  When I started going to UC Berkeley, I learned that the studio only fired to cone 04 because the clay that they provided was a low fire clay.

When I started working with my own clays I chose cone 6 because most of the kilns at Cal are electric, and because it is more economical to fire cone 6 than cone 10.  I could also get the same type of clay, generally (B-Mix with sand) and the body was still really strong.  The only problem was that most cone 6 glazes couldn't do what reduction could do.  So I made it a mission of mine to find glazes that could replicate the cone 10 reduction results. I found some great recipes in books like: Mastering Cone 6 Glazes and Electric Firing (Both found at Clay Planet in Santa Clara). Although these books have provided me with some awesome glazes, some of which I have remade multiple times, I have still yet to find exact duplicates for some of my favorites: Copper Red being the main one. 

All of this testing and retesting, led to a stack of journals and sheets of paper full of glaze recipes. Some of them tested others left untested due to missing ingredients.  This in turn led to my Glaze Database....

Organization:
Last year, I got FileMaker Pro in order to organize my research for my Thesis.  Since then I have been virtually obsessed with database making.  the latest being a glaze database (above).  This database allowed me to be rid of the slips of paper and have all the recipes in one place, complete with images of the glaze tests and the last date that I mixed the glaze. I've only used it a hand full of times since its creation, but I'm pretty much loving it.  Then again I'm a nerd.  If you're a nerd too you should think about something like this for your glaze organization.

Double Walls for fun! - Chips-and-Dips bowls

Chips-and-Dips Bowl - Detai

  Today, while visiting my parents and looking at the lovely gifts I had made them over the past year, my mom told me I should share them and inform everyone that things like this, although not available on Etsy, can be made to order.

Also, I wanted to share that these are very simple ways to apply the double-wall throwing method.  Of course, YouTube can show you a lot of different and more complex ways to do it. And there are tons of fancy double-wall forms that can be made, such as vases. As a matter of fact when I first delved into double-walls I wanted to make double-walled goblets where I could carve away the outside and reveal the inner cup.  I threw about a dozen of them before I finally got it down.  After that I tried to think of different ways to explore double walls.  I don't know about you, but I get my best ideas when driving (especially back and forth between my parents house and my place in Berkeley). I started to wonder why the inner cylinder couldn't be at varying heights, maybe taller than the outer one perhaps. And why the outer cylinder couldn't fold into or out from that inner one.  The results of these experiments are pretty awesome and will be posted in time.

Chips-and-dips Bowl

But, these are what came out of the more mundane applications of the double wall.  Functional and simple, the chips-and-dips bowl specifically came out of playing on the wheel.  I often have no idea what I'm going to make when I first center the clay. I simply let it become whatever it's going to be. The chips-and-dips bowl is not original, but definitely fun and definitely easy to execute. The experienced potter could probably throw it in 5 minutes.

The Chicken roaster on the other hand was the result of a request for this type of form.  My step-dad wanted something he could stick a roast a small chicken on, over beer in the center cylinder.  The only downside of this piece is that given the fact that it is ceramic (cone 6) it will likely not withstand the high and sporadic heat given off my a BBQ grill.  However, it would be just fine for an oven, and could probably go up to about 350-400 degrees without issue.

To sum up, double wall is fun and simple. In fact, I'm finding it more difficult to throw single walled now! I'm finding more and more ways to apply double walls to my work. And these two pieces, which are fun and simple gifts are examples of two easy ways to do it.

Chicken Roaster - Detail

Chicken Roaster

Etsy Link

Ok, oops! Just realized that the link on the last post doesn't open up the Etsy page.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/GenevaMillionCeramic

That one should... I hope!

Thanks for the support!

Playing with Manganese Clay...

This posting includes all the work I made with some Manganese Clay.  The clay was given to me my Ehren Tool, who works at the UC Berkeley Ceramics studio.  When he gave it to me he said, "have fun with the Cancer Clay." The thing about Manganese Clay is that it fires this beautiful dark brown color, and when left naked has bits of metallic sheen built in. But, and this is a big but, it is highly toxic to work with before it fires.  It's fine to work with wet, but once it starts to dry, the dust it produces is cancer causing.  How fun! Oh, the prices we pay.

Anyway I just thought I'd share these great results I got from playing with the "Cancer clay".  What was also fantastic about it was that my usual glazes came out completely different when applied to this clay.  Of course I did tests, but it was still an enormous surprise to see the finished pieces.  The Manganese clay provides a kind of warmth to the piece that is missing with the white clay. This is especially evident with the Rutile glaze, which almost looks like honey over the manganese clay.  And the red under-glaze could also never look quite as vibrant as it does against this clay body either.  

(Click the link to see all the work I have for sale on Etsy.)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/GenevaMillionCeramic

Butter Dish

Gravy Boat

Triplet Bowls

Red Manganese Vase

"Banana-tree bowl" successes (and failures)

The banana-tree bowl is an invention of my very own. I'm sure you can think of the inspirations for such a bowl. This form is an expanded exploration of the double walled form and a new avenue in which I thought I might apply it. I can't wait to take one of these home and try it out! That will be the real test.

The other success of this bowl is the glaze on the green one.  Believe it or not, the bowl is all one glaze, only the top of the tree is glazed differently.  This great variation was achieved by the straw glaze, which is yellow/red when it's thin and ocean blue when it's thick. God I love glazes like this.
On the other hand, the brown and yellow bowl is glazed with two of my most stable glazes. This is also a great feature. There is nothing greater than expecting and praying for an effect and getting it.
Overall, I'd say both bowls were successful in their own ways.

… I have to make an amendment to my earlier statement about these bowls being complete successes....

I took the brown and yellow one home and the banana tree in the center was too short! Damn! Still not sure about the height of the green one, I'll have to test it out later, and hope for the best. And now I know that I have to throw that central "tree" part a lot taller.

New kiln unloaded...

After a week of firing drama, my glaze kiln is finally out. I'm so excited about the varied results. Although I always do glaze tests it is impossible to know exactly how a glaze will work in a larger firing.  So, even though I went into this firing with certain expectations, every piece was a surprise.

Detailed pictures and comments to come.

Introduction:

Hello all,
The purpose of this blog is to share my many experiments with clay.  Yet, the blog in itself is an experimentation.  I have never really done anything like this before, so please be patient with me.

Over the past couple of years I have been using Facebook as a kind of Blog.  I have been posting my ceramic pieces and glazes as they unfold rather sporadically.  However, over the past few months this experimentation has become more and more intense and even scientific.  I'm excited to see where it is going next.

Okay, enough of being elusive about what exactly my experiments include.  Basically I've been exploring throwing and what I can do with the process.  However, since there was really no one around to teach me exactly what I wanted to do, I used YouTube and my own trial and error to develop my own shapes.  Basically this includes double-walled (some triple), closed forms, and all kinds of thrown and altered pieces.  A couple of weeks ago, my teacher, Richard Shaw, offered me a book on George Ore (The Mad Potter of Biloxi) and told me to check him out.  I realized upon studying the imaged of this book that for the last two years I have been going the direction of George Ore, without even knowing who he was.  All Richard had to say to this was, "Just make sure you don't go mad too."

The other form of experimentation I explore has to do with cone 6 oxidation glazes.  I started my education in a studio that fired cone 10 reduction and fell in love with those types of results.  When I started working with cone 6 electric firing I really wanted to duplicate reduction results.  A real triumph occurred last week when Richard looked at a couple of glaze tests I had made and asked me, "How did you get these to reduce?" I was practically giddy.  "I didn't," I said, "it's elecrtic fire, oxidation, cone 6." In the past few days I consolidated all my notebooks of glaze recipes into a FileMaker Pro database.

Let the Blogging Begin...