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Had a customer in the booth yesterday afternoon who really liked my work. Was going to send her husband over to buy a particular bowl for her, as it was her birthday. And she asked if I ever did commissions.
Yes, I said, I did the all the time.
Well, I'd like a bowl like that one, with no rim, just a straight side, she said, pointing to the batter bowls. That's easy enough, I replied. And I'd like it in a matte black glaze.
Aaaand that's where I had to say no.
I do take special orders all the time. Every firing has at least half a dozen of them, I've already got three or four in queue for my July kiln load. But they're generally a form I usually do, but with a particular pattern, or a new form but glazed and painted like my standard ware. I do not match colors, I do not test glazes.
Glaze is not like paint. You do not just buy a can at Home Depot and slap it on the pot. There are chemical interactions, with the clay body, the firing, the atmosphere in the kiln. Even the most reliable glaze in your firing situation will need extensive testing to adapt to mine. Best case, it will take at least two or three firings to get a reliable result, and since I fire the famous 50 cubic-foot car kiln only once every six weeks, we're talking a minimum three months, more likely six, before we get a finished pot. (A potter I work with at Club Mud has taken over a year on projects like this.)
Add in the fact that matte black glazes are notoriously tricky--they're just on the edge of devitrified (no longer glassy), and loaded with metal oxides--usually iron, cobalt and manganese--so I can't be sure the resulting glaze, no matter how lovely, is actually food safe.
So I explain the complications to her, and suggest that she find a potter with a black glaze she really likes, then ask them to make the bowl for her. It's far easier to throw a new form than it is to create a new glaze.
I didn't realize it was so complicated, she said. (Few people do.)
And her husband never came by to get her birthday present.
Yes, I said, I did the all the time.
Well, I'd like a bowl like that one, with no rim, just a straight side, she said, pointing to the batter bowls. That's easy enough, I replied. And I'd like it in a matte black glaze.
Aaaand that's where I had to say no.
I do take special orders all the time. Every firing has at least half a dozen of them, I've already got three or four in queue for my July kiln load. But they're generally a form I usually do, but with a particular pattern, or a new form but glazed and painted like my standard ware. I do not match colors, I do not test glazes.
Glaze is not like paint. You do not just buy a can at Home Depot and slap it on the pot. There are chemical interactions, with the clay body, the firing, the atmosphere in the kiln. Even the most reliable glaze in your firing situation will need extensive testing to adapt to mine. Best case, it will take at least two or three firings to get a reliable result, and since I fire the famous 50 cubic-foot car kiln only once every six weeks, we're talking a minimum three months, more likely six, before we get a finished pot. (A potter I work with at Club Mud has taken over a year on projects like this.)
Add in the fact that matte black glazes are notoriously tricky--they're just on the edge of devitrified (no longer glassy), and loaded with metal oxides--usually iron, cobalt and manganese--so I can't be sure the resulting glaze, no matter how lovely, is actually food safe.
So I explain the complications to her, and suggest that she find a potter with a black glaze she really likes, then ask them to make the bowl for her. It's far easier to throw a new form than it is to create a new glaze.
I didn't realize it was so complicated, she said. (Few people do.)
And her husband never came by to get her birthday present.