Stone ware bowl with narrow foot and Ash Glaze.
Measures 25cm Diam x 8cm H.
Made by Pat Hodson from Hahndorf, South Australia
The bowls are high fired to 1280 degrees C to glaze maturity, and then cooled slowly to about 1200 degrees which allows the high silica content in the glaze to crystallize producing a matte effect.
The glaze is basically an ash glaze containing about 20% wood ash (in this case mostly Casuarina and Acacia) and a large proportion of silica. The clay bodies are part “as dug” clays and commercial bodies.
The firing consists of maintaining a “reducing atmosphere” in the kiln; that is an atmosphere starved of oxygen. Fire being very “hungry” for oxygen causes the clay body and the glaze materials to give up any oxygen in them, thus producing quite different effects in terms of colour and interaction between glaze and clay. Clay bodies containing iron specks will show quite pronounced and pleasing speckling through the glaze.