Sculpture: Tile

(March 2006)
I thought I'd post a new one for a change. This sculpture is different from the rest in that it was sculpted in a firing clay. This means to get the final piece it just needs to be kiln fired, instead of the long involved casting process with the other pieces I've done.

I sculpting it during the last class of the Winter session. It went off the drying room where it will be taken to the kiln for firing. So I eagerly await the start of the Spring session so I can see how it turns out.

There is a multi-step firing process involved. The first firing I believe is called a bisk firing. After this firing the piece will come back very white in colour. It can be left in this state, or it can be high fired. High firing will give the piece a more stone like look. More earthy yellow in tone. It will also pick up deposits of iron which cast an interesting shadow over the piece. The iron comes from the kiln it's self. The temperature is high enough that small amounts of it vapourise and then condense in on the piece.

Another thing you can do before the high firing is add surface finishes. I'm not sure what all the options are, but I've seen some of thenm, and you can get some interesting effects.

So an obvious question is, why don't we use a firing clay all the time? Well there are several reasons I can think of. The clay is a lot more expensive to work with and it more difficult to work with. It costs more to get, and it's harder to maintain. It must be kept clean of contaminants or it could explode during firing. It's also harder to work with. The grain of the clay is much larger, so it's harder to get detail into it. It dries faster, and doesn't soften up again easily. Finally you need to be very careful how put it together. Creating an air pocket in the clay could cause the piece to explode when fired.

Plus there's the poetry class, which makes full use of the kiln so there's rarely an opportunity for additional works to get fired. So it was a bit of a privilege to get to work with this clay and I fully enjoyed it.

The moment of truth will come in the next few weeks. Did I make any mistakes creating it that might cause it to come apart or even explode in the kiln. I worked with it a lot longer then I should have and it was getting pretty dry by the end. It's hard to add new clay when the old clay is almost dry. So it could turn out that these pictures are all I have of 6 classes worth of work.

Unlike all my other pieces that I've just decided to squish back into the bin rather then cast, the decision is not mine whether it survives. It could return to class this week and be given a hand full of rubble.