Keeping a lid on it, part 1: Ginger Jars

Of course, this also gave me an excuse to get back to my wheel, which can’t be a bad thing. Since the bells I made in the last issue, I’d been playing with a bit of red iron oxide, wedging it into my usual white stoneware. I love that deliciously smooth pale stuff, but I have to admit to occasional bouts of clay envy when I see people with speckled clay showing off the way it shows through their glazes, or dark clays that completely change their fired glaze colours. I’d ordered a sample of red stoneware from Valentine Clays recently – loved it – and decided to get a few bags and see what difference it made to my pieces.

While I waited for the order to arrive, I scratched the itch by making my own, albeit nowhere near as dark, red clay. Of course, I wish now that I’d kept a better record of how much oxide I added to how much, way back when.