Carol Smeraldo Pottery © 2011 All Rights reserved
Carol Smeraldo Pottery
Nova Scotia
Phone: 902- 434-1336
Web Site Re-Design
By One Off Studio
CATALOGUE:
RAKU
Item numbers ending with “R”
RAKU
Item numbers ending with “R”
CATALOGUE:
“A SYMBOLIC JOURNEY” Item numbers starting with SJ and AG
“A SYMBOLIC JOURNEY” Item numbers starting with SJ and AG
CATALOGUE:
PORCELAIN AND TRANSLUCENT PORCELAIN Item numbers 1001 onward
PORCELAIN AND TRANSLUCENT PORCELAIN Item numbers 1001 onward
CATALOGUE:
PASTEL PAINTINGS
Item numbers starting with “P”
PASTEL PAINTINGS
Item numbers starting with “P”
TRANSLUCENT PORCELAIN AND LUMINARIES
Luminaries are Illuminated Artworks!
Luminaries are Illuminated Artworks!
These translucent porcelain lamp covers reveal beautiful and mysterious shadows and light patterns on surrounding environments. Grouped or singly, Luminaries make stunning and creative chandelier covers as well as amazing atmospheric accent lights. Luminaries can be designed to fit many traditional and contemporary lighting fixtures.
Each Luminary has a unique carved and stretched textured surface which can include custom designed motifs personal to you. No two are exactly alike although the artworks in a pair or family grouping will coordinate well together.
When available new works will appear here and on Carol’s Blog so just follow this link and stop by again soon.
A SMALL BIT OF HISTORY- About Translucent Porcelain
Translucent porcelain was first achieved in China when veins of pure kaolin and very sticky, bendable ball clays were combined to make clay bodies that could be hand formed and fired to high temperatures. As the design of kilns and firing skills became more affective they could reach higher and higher temperatures until the temperature was high enough for the molten porcelain to be translucent. Some clay bodies will deform but others will just hold their shape.
The Chinese exported a lot of porcelain which became very popular. Imagine the difference between painting on a brown or white canvas. Colours on a white background are purer, clearer and brighter. A variety of wonderful traditional pottery was developed in Islamic countries and Europe in an effort to copy Chinese porcelain, such as: Islamic luster ware and majolica, Dutch Delftware, Spanish and Italian majolica and English bone china. Coating darker clay bodies with white clay slip to imitate porcelain was a favourite method as well as covering darker bodies with very white opaque tin glazes. In Germany they began to build kilns that could fire higher in order to produce salt glazed roof and drainage tiles that would last longer. This was one of the technical breakthroughs needed for porcelain to be produced outside of China
The English discovered that adding bone ash to kaolin eventually found in Cornwall produced a translucent clay body that was excellent for casting but not bendable enough for hand manipulation. Also bone china is fired to full maturity before it is glazed so that it can be supported during the molten stage. Because raw glaze can not stick to a non porous surface, the glazes have to have as little water as possible and be sprayable. Chemical additions aid adhesion before the work is glaze fired to a much lower temperature. The lower fired glaze is bright and remains on the surface with less exchange of particles between the glaze and clay as there would be in mid to high range glaze firing.
Studio potters have used high firing porcelain clay bodies made from English kaolin and slightly less white kaolin mined in Georgia in the USA combined with light coloured ball clay for malleability to achieve translucency balanced with the ever present risk of deformation. Potters usually fire their work to a low temperature first and then glaze the porous work and fire again to a much higher temperature to mature the clay and glaze together. Although malleable, these clay bodies are demanding and unforgiving requiring much practice to develop the skills required to manipulate them.
In the last few years American and Australian clay producers have succeeded in producing very white translucent porcelain at mid range temperatures like bone china but workable. Some potters call this faux porcelain because it does not require the extremely high temperatures of traditional porcelain to mature. These translucent clay bodies are even more demanding and unforgiving but they are much more “Green” saving a lot of firing energy. Additional skills are needed to throw and hand build with them.
Each Luminary has a unique carved and stretched textured surface which can include custom designed motifs personal to you. No two are exactly alike although the artworks in a pair or family grouping will coordinate well together.
When available new works will appear here and on Carol’s Blog so just follow this link and stop by again soon.
A SMALL BIT OF HISTORY- About Translucent Porcelain
Translucent porcelain was first achieved in China when veins of pure kaolin and very sticky, bendable ball clays were combined to make clay bodies that could be hand formed and fired to high temperatures. As the design of kilns and firing skills became more affective they could reach higher and higher temperatures until the temperature was high enough for the molten porcelain to be translucent. Some clay bodies will deform but others will just hold their shape.
The Chinese exported a lot of porcelain which became very popular. Imagine the difference between painting on a brown or white canvas. Colours on a white background are purer, clearer and brighter. A variety of wonderful traditional pottery was developed in Islamic countries and Europe in an effort to copy Chinese porcelain, such as: Islamic luster ware and majolica, Dutch Delftware, Spanish and Italian majolica and English bone china. Coating darker clay bodies with white clay slip to imitate porcelain was a favourite method as well as covering darker bodies with very white opaque tin glazes. In Germany they began to build kilns that could fire higher in order to produce salt glazed roof and drainage tiles that would last longer. This was one of the technical breakthroughs needed for porcelain to be produced outside of China
The English discovered that adding bone ash to kaolin eventually found in Cornwall produced a translucent clay body that was excellent for casting but not bendable enough for hand manipulation. Also bone china is fired to full maturity before it is glazed so that it can be supported during the molten stage. Because raw glaze can not stick to a non porous surface, the glazes have to have as little water as possible and be sprayable. Chemical additions aid adhesion before the work is glaze fired to a much lower temperature. The lower fired glaze is bright and remains on the surface with less exchange of particles between the glaze and clay as there would be in mid to high range glaze firing.
Studio potters have used high firing porcelain clay bodies made from English kaolin and slightly less white kaolin mined in Georgia in the USA combined with light coloured ball clay for malleability to achieve translucency balanced with the ever present risk of deformation. Potters usually fire their work to a low temperature first and then glaze the porous work and fire again to a much higher temperature to mature the clay and glaze together. Although malleable, these clay bodies are demanding and unforgiving requiring much practice to develop the skills required to manipulate them.
In the last few years American and Australian clay producers have succeeded in producing very white translucent porcelain at mid range temperatures like bone china but workable. Some potters call this faux porcelain because it does not require the extremely high temperatures of traditional porcelain to mature. These translucent clay bodies are even more demanding and unforgiving but they are much more “Green” saving a lot of firing energy. Additional skills are needed to throw and hand build with them.
Translucent Porcelain
Porcelain becomes molten during firing making it possible to design work that takes advantage of translucency but also there is the increased risk of unwanted deformation. This risk can produce some very exciting work! Porcelain does not have to be translucent. It can be opaque or some variation in between. My own interest in porcelain developed while working with internationally known potter Cynthia Bringle at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, ME. It was love at first touch and delight that colour applied to the beautiful smooth white surface is clearer, purer and brighter just like painting on a white rather than brown canvas. It has been worth the extra effort required to learn how to handle this unforgiving material. Now that translucency has become a focus, the challenge is doubled.
Light has become more important to me as I explore the idea of searching for creativity in “A Symbolic Journey in Porcelain, Part Two” which represents the night before the dawn. Often at the eleventh hour of despair, light begins to dawn. I am captivated by the challenge of bringing the rich dark opaqueness of Raku into a harmonious relationship with the contrasting luminosity of translucent white porcelain.
“In the brush (wheel and potter’s hands) doing what it’s doing,
It will stumble on what one couldn’t do by oneself.” Robert Motherwell, artist-painter
“Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.” Ovid
Light has become more important to me as I explore the idea of searching for creativity in “A Symbolic Journey in Porcelain, Part Two” which represents the night before the dawn. Often at the eleventh hour of despair, light begins to dawn. I am captivated by the challenge of bringing the rich dark opaqueness of Raku into a harmonious relationship with the contrasting luminosity of translucent white porcelain.
“In the brush (wheel and potter’s hands) doing what it’s doing,
It will stumble on what one couldn’t do by oneself.” Robert Motherwell, artist-painter
“Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.” Ovid
5 PART LIT CHANDELIER WITH STAINED GLASS
DETAIL OF UNLIT CHANDELIER
DETAIL OF LIT CHANDELIER
1119 “Fiddlehead Bowl I” SOLD
1166 “Fiddlehead Vase I”
Click on an image to enlarge