Mountain Cup/Mug Sale - SOLD OUT!
Updated: Dec 11, 2018
WOW! All of these mugs sold out in only a few days. Thank you all for the support. Hopefully I'll have more product up for sale soon. Cheers!
- Samantha
About these pieces and the wood firing process -
Each piece was made on the potters wheel out of porcelain clay formulated for the wood kiln by a master potter named Jack Troy. After the piece is dries to the state of "leather hard" I then trim the foot and possibly attach a handle. I usually carve the drawing the next day. I let the pieces dry slowly under plastic until "bone dry", at this point they are ready to be bisque fired in an electric kiln to a temperature of about 1800F. Once the piece comes out of the bisque kiln I dipped them into a black glaze. I then go through the process of wiping away until the glaze only remains in the carving. At this point the pieces are ready to pack up for the trip to Chester Springs Art Center for the wood firing.
The wood kiln in Chester Springs is a two-chamber noborigama kiln. This style of kiln has been used in Japan since the 17th century. The one in Chester Springs was built in 2014. The first chamber is fired solely with wood, salt is introduced in the second chamber. All of these pieces were in the first chamber. Because wood firing is so labor intensive, it is usually done together in group.
We began glazing our work on Friday at noon, we loaded the kiln on Saturday morning then started it up around 1:30pm. The kiln must be stoked by hand for 24 hours. And we unload after four days of cooling. Thursday morning we gathered in the freezing cold and unloaded, unloading the kiln always feels like Christmas!
The insides of the mugs/cups are glazed with shino glaze. Modern shino glazes were developed in Japan during the 1930s after studying pots made during the momoyama shino pots that were made from 1568-1600 in the MIno and Seto areas. The outside of the pieces were left blank. During the firing the wood ash is stirred up so that the ash gets into the atmosphere of the kiln. This ash turns to glass (glaze) and adheres to the outside of the pots. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll get an "ash blasted" piece that has drips of ash. A few of my pieces have this drippy ash glaze effect and when it combines with the black glaze inlay, it turns blue.
All of these items are dishwasher safe.
Mountain cup #1 - SOLD! Holds 10 oz. Slightly ash blasted. $30.
Mountain cup #2 - SOLD!Holds 8 oz. Very little ash. $30
Mountain mug #3 - SOLD! Holds 8 oz. Drippy ash blast on back. $40
Mountain Mug #4 - SOLD!Holds 9 oz. Drippy ash blasted mountains that look like a glacier! $40
Mountain mug #5 - SOLD!Holds 10 oz. Ash blasted drippy mountains on back! $40
Mountain mug #6 - SOLD!Holds 12 oz. Slight ash blast, drippy skies. $35
Mountain mug #7 - SOLD!Holds 7.5 oz. Ash blasted drippy mountains on the side. $35
Mountain mug #8 - SOLD!Holds 8 oz. Slight ash blast drips in the sky. $35
Mountain mug #9 - SOLD!Holds 8 oz. Only slight ash blast speckles on the front. $35
Please contact me via samantha dot burythedragon at gmail dot com if you are interested in purchasing any of these pieces.
