identity issue

Well I have the first pieces back from the gas kiln now and am wondering if I need to work on my identity? I think this new work is going in a wonderful direction but am concerned some of it looks an awful lot like fellow potters Tony and Sheila Clennell. They have been very good to me and I respect both them and their work very much. Sometimes I wonder if my admiration comes too close copying? The surface on these plates is very much the surface that Tony and Sheila often achieve on their Shino work.


While I wonder about the shino surface, i do have to admit that the slip decorated work is working very well. I love the way it carbon traps on the ridges of slip. Carbon trapping is formed by the soluble soda ash in the glaze coming to the surface on drying pots after they have been glazed. This surface soda ash traps carbon int he form of soot in the early reduction stages of the firing. It then melts into the glaze leaving areas of carbon suspended int he surface glaze matrix. You can really see this well on the surface of the white shino cup and bowl .

I have more cups in this weeks firing and hope they turn out as well as these did. The latest batch are in a couple of colours, red, celadon, and raven's blue. We'll see if I feel these give me more of the identity that I was looking for.

Last week I kept working on the large platters with slip decoration. I have now busted through 8 large plates ans 14 small wall plates all having slip cracking off them in the drying. Something seems to be a miss in my bucket of slip. Perhaps I need to make yet another batch and see if I have mixed it incorrectly?

Back to the wheel!