Horse Hair and Soda Firing

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Yesterday I finished my flower holder. I cleaned it up, then burnished it with the back of a metal spoon. Then I painted it with terra sigillata and burnished it with a plastic bag (apparently blue Walmart bags are the best for this, but I made do with a generic grocery bag). It now has a shiny, smooth finish, which is required for horse hair. You can kind of see the shininess in the picture; this piece looks lighter than others I've photographed because it's reflecting more light. The piece will be bisqued and then fired in a raku kiln; it won't have any glaze applied.


Next I started on a small sculpture of a rose, which will hopefully be part of a soda firing that will be done during the last week of classes. Soda firing is accomplished by blowing baking soda or soda ash into a hot kiln; this results in the pieces within essentially being glazed on all their surfaces. The pieces are propped on raw clay in order to prevent their sticking to the kiln shelves.

White and red clay look totally different after being soda fired, so I'm going to alternate colors of clay for each petal of the rose. I'm hoping it will look quite striking. So far I just started making petals out of white clay. The exact type is unknown, as it was recycled clay; all I know is it's white and high fire, as other than clay for raku pieces, all we use is cone 10 clay. The petals will be attached to the large round piece of clay, which will serve as the base.

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