Amanda Bridges Art

amber needs table decorations for her wedding reception. we can't have candles or open flame, so i'm playing around with different ideas for lighting. i started with five of these, different treatments and different heights.  here's the only one that survived the first round. i got some cracking and shivering at the seam, but it remained intact.

The weather finally cooperated yesterday and I was able to to another reduction fire. I was much happier with the results. I was able to get a good cone 6 on all the shelves. We tried a couple of new glazes, Temmoku Gold and Raw Sienna. Both of the recipes are from Ceramic Arts Daily, Making the Switch from Cone 6 to Cone 10 . I've listed the recipes below. One of my cups with Raw Sienna. One of my oil lamps with Temmoku Gold. An oil lamps with Raw Sienna. The Raw Sienna came out dead on, but not the Temmoku Gold. We didn't fire any white clay bodies, so I'm going to test it on porcelain next. RECIPES Raw Sienna Wollastonite - 28% Frit 3195 - 23% Nepheline Syenite - 4% EPK Kaolin - 28% Silica - 17% Temmoku Gold Cornish Stone - 67.41% Dolomite - 7.86% Gerstley Borate - 3.37% Lithium Carbonate - 6.17% Whiting - 8.98% Silica - 6.17% Add: Red Iron Oxide - 11.24% And of course, there's the favs from Kentucky Mudworks . ...

Results of the reduction fire are in! I had a little under half that I got good results from. Most of the glazes I used are Mudworks Glazes from Kentucky Mudworks . Melted Butter (bottom) and Satin Black (liner & rimmed) on Red Rock. Satin White on Red Rock. Kentucky Bluegrass (bottom) and Stardust (liner & rimmed) on Red Rock. Melted Butter (bottom) and Retro Brown (liner & rimmed) on Red Rock. Kentucky Bluegrass (bottom) and Satin Black (liner & rimmed) on 200 Stoneware. Melted Butter (bottom) and Satin Black (liner & rimmed) on 200 Stoneware. It got more reduction than the pitcher (below). This is one of my faves. Melted Butter (bottom) and Satin Black (liner & rimmed) on 200 Stoneware. Satin White and Apricot on 200 Stoneware. Kinda boring compared to the rest but not too bad. Melted Butter (liner and rimmed) and Satin White (outside of bowl) on 200 Stoneware. Also one of my faves. I may post "the bad" and "the ug...

So I finally decided to make the plunge to gas reduction, but wanted a cheaper option than a pre-fab and an easier option than building one. Electric to gas conversion was the way to go. I bought a 7.0 Cu Ft kiln carcass from my local pottery supply store, Kentucky Mudworks . My next big decision was which burner system to buy, Olympic Torchbearer or the Summit Kiln Conversion Kit . Cathi Newlin of The Square Peg was a wealth of information for how she set up her system using a Summit system. I finally settled on the 23" Olympic Torchbearer burner system with ignition ring and thermo-couple shutoff. It just looked studier and I figured since it would be living outside in the crazy Kentucky weather, it was a better way to go. Gutting the kiln carcass took some time, but was not terribly hard. The next big step was to cut holes for the burner ports and top vent. There was surprisingly little information on the web for how big to make the holes. This is where the Summit Co...