The first of the new pieces are finally glazed, out of the kiln and ready to go to the gallery. And what a relief it is to have them all safely transformed.
When I first started dabbling with clay I really had no idea how much patience would be required, never mind resilience – you soon learn from experience that no matter how pleased you are with the final sculpted piece, things might yet go drastically awry when extreme heat is introduced.
It’s a lengthy process to get from raw clay to finished sculpture, not least because of the drying out time that’s needed even before the first ‘bisque’ firing can take place (required to turn it from porous ‘greenware’ into stoneware that is impervious to moisture). Fire it too soon before it’s had a chance to completely dry out and cracks and explosions are the order of the day. Depending on the size of the piece this can range from a couple of weeks to a month or so (sometimes even more if you’re of a particularly nervous disposition). But even when a sculpture has made it through this stage, if you then want to add a glaze to your finished piece there’s another nerve shredding wait to endure as it has to go back in a second time where all the wonderful chemical magic happens. Or not. Glazes are notorious for having a mind of their own, being such sensitive little creatures when it comes to reacting with the clay body on which they’re applied, never mind the temperature and length of firing…saying that, I’ve had some very happy ‘accidents’.
All this oven time mounts up to almost 36 hours, again depending on the size of your piece(s). And then of course everything needs to cool down once again – kiln and sculptures – before they can be handled, inspected, photographed and considered ready for sale. So you see, whilst creating a sculpture that you’re happy with in the first place can take many hours, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Is it any wonder that by the time they are ready for the gallery I’ve formed such an attachment to them it’s as if they were my dearest friends. Which is no bad thing when you work on your own all day.
