Project No. 3: "Personal Project"

In this project we had to choose a ceramic artist who uses one or several techniques that we learned in the workshops in the first semester. The works of the ceramicists that one was goint to choose was also suppose to be appealing to the individual. After the choice was made, everyone had to learn more about the techniques the artist uses and try some of them our self.

I chose Laurie Shaman. She is a studio potter in Chicago, United States. I came across her works when was looking through the book "500 Plates". Her works stood out to me instantly, they strike me with their beautiful imagery and techniques. I found her works very close to my own creative ideas. She works with every day life images and mostly depicts nature, people, animals, old cities and rural streets on her ceramic works. Her hand built porcelain and white stoneware works are like canvases for the beautiful underglaze paintings.

Shaman's plate depicting birds

Laurie slab builts her works with either mid-range porcelain or white erthenware clay. Firts the work gets bisque fired to 1040 in electric kiln. Then after liner glazing, all the textural areas are brushed with underglazes and wiped down to enhance the lines and marks. Next, the underglazes are applied by slip traling, sponging and brushing to achieve further tonality and line definition, while sometimes using the sgraffito technique for a wood-like effect. When all that done, the works get glazed with a clear glaze to seal the surface and fired in electric kiln to Cone 6/ 1220 degrees C. 

I tried to experiment with the techniques that Shaman uses. I used porcelain and I slab rolled it and cut into tiles. I textured it with a wooden tool and put it into 1040 firing. I made different colour underglazes by mixing the pigments with some sugar (so it sticks to the clay body) and warm water. I brushed, sponged and wiped the underglazes on the surface of tiles just as Shaman does. I chose some of my own imagery and some of Shaman's.

 

I then made couple of clear 1220 degree firing glazes (1220 is best temperature because the underglazes burn out if temperature is higher). Out of all I chose a transparent semi-matt glaze which looked the best on tiles.

My own imagery

Experiment No.1

Experiment No.2

Image from Shaman's works