My ‘jam’ is making Face Vases. I coil the pots. They have a variety of moods -often channeling the current mood- and I use bright, sometimes contrasting colors and textures. I sometimes give them a 3rd luster firing, either pearl luster for a unicorn-like shone, or for gold for golden teeth 🙂
Nerikomi (練り込み, lit. ’kneading’) is an artistic technique for creating Japanese pottery in multiple colors of clay. The technique is also called neriage (練上げ), although this term also refers to the throwing of multiple colored clays on a wheel.
The Japanese firing technique, Raku is one of my favorite firing methods. I only do it once or twice a year. It’s hard work but always fun.
WIP Aug 2023
Nerikomi results Aug 2023
Nerikomi WIP April – Aug 2023
Raku May 2023
Feb & March 2023
You use 5-10% pigment on one kilo. Hysterically yellow pigment – lots of oxides.Pigment & weighed-out porcelainPigmented, wedged, porcelain balls.Weighed pigmented porcelainBlock reveal!First block result. Rolled-out slab to create a bowl Nerikomi <3Block in progress!Can’t wait to cut and reveal this one! The outside often looks gross. So pretty!The block can be cut in two ways creating a different effectBlock reveal!Created a slab to use for e.g. a cup or bowl
Face Vases
Homeboy – They’ll get a golden tooth soon
New children & a moody
Frylock (Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Will create Master Shake & Meatwad in the futureWith a real golden tooth!These Face Vases have been fired a third time with a mother-of-pearl luster. On the Ghost Face I applied patches of the luster on a non-glazed surface which resulted in a matte pearl luster, which is really pretty. Ghost Vase: Used white slip on leather-hard clay. After the bisque-firing I applied two different white glazes, including a mudcrack glaze, which is hard to work with and some flakes peeled-off. On the eyes I used Ceraline, which is a wax crayon with (in this case) white pigments. Because it’s wax it resists the glaze and thus it forms little droplets. Mass Hysteria kurinuki: experiment with thick, layered drips. But, since I used an underglaze it’s hard to get a lot of texture. I need to use a different type of glaze or mix my own glaze to get what I had in mind. But, outcome is still cool 🙂Kurinuki Magma Boy! I used a pumice-lava glaze here in several layers. I need to apply additional layers to get more pronounced craters. Next time!Jut & Jul. Here I also used slip on leather-hard clay and transparent glaze on the bodies. Beautiful Robin’s Egg glaze. I mixed neon-chartreuse with white sprinkles (orange & blue sprinkles) on its eyes and light purple on its semi-happy, semi-unhappy lips. Porcelain slip-cast cup with thick, glossy black (duh) glaze]Horse hair Raku for SKurinukiFirst time Raku-firing of a Face Vase 🙂Horse hair RakuKurinukiHello little beauty! Getting the hang of the mudcrack glaze (is the place, like space)I mixed the white glaze with orange & blur sprinkles with neon chartreuse to get a off-looking light chartreuse creamsicle party Experimenting with a mudcrack glaze
Two new Face Vases with new glazes. These ones are fired as Earthenware but the same glaze can be fired to Stoneware which will make the vases waterproof.
My Face VasesMister Disaster Mayhem and my self-portrait Face Vase, including my prominent Jewish nose. I also had Max Tailleur in mind, who was a Jewish humour specialist, most famous for his ‘Sam en Moos’ jokes, which my dad still makes every day, and the “Geinlijn” which he launched in 1971. It was a telephone number you could call and pay 20 cents for a joke.Red Freckle Vase Face is my one and only first Face Vase! Mister Absurdist ‘I’m so confused what’s going on’ Face Vase I made for Willum. This one is just too cute, albeit a bit submissive-looking but it’s all good in the ceramics hood. The cup is amazing but fired at 1000 degrees Celsius so not really suited for liquids. That said, I discovered that this glaze can be fired up to 1200 degrees Celsius which would turn it into Stoneware and thus waterproof for liquids.comMe and my first Face Vase 2019 at the old & wonderful studio on Overtoom.This ^ is one of my cast cups. Using them everyday for coffee or tea. Best way to drink drinks I’d say 🙂 This is a self-portrait Face Vase. With prominent Jewish nose, of course. Some of my Raku-fired pieces. Raku ware (楽焼, raku-yaki) is a type of Japanese pottery traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies, most often in the form of chawan tea bowls. It is traditionally characterised by being hand-shaped rather than thrown, fairly porous vessels, which result from low firing temperatures, leadglazes and the removal of pieces from the kiln while still glowing hot. In the traditional Japanese process, the fired raku piece is removed from the hot kiln and is allowed to cool in the open air. – source Wikipedia.Me, myself and IFreshly hot (~ 1000 degrees Celsius) out of the kiln, into the combustion box where the soot ‘steeps’ in the cracks. This is the stage where it has smoked out for some time, now ready to be cleaned , which is a super tedious but also satisfying last stage. Cast porcelain. I used a Manganese wax crayon to draw lines on the bisque-fired porcelain. The lines will turn brown (due to the Manganese) when it’s in the kiln for the glaze-firing, resulting in slightly indented lines. These wax crayons based on hydrocarbons, pigments and glass formers.More cast and drawn-on bisque fired porcelain, ready for the glaze firing.End result of some of the porcelain. The blue lines are drawn on with an under-glaze pencil.This mat-black glaze turns into a rust-colour when splattered on. The glaze underneath is white with 2% grey.One of the first cast mugsRaku (hand-built and coiled)Always sign your pieces Horse hair Raku. The non-glazed but bisque-fired ceramics are taken out of the kiln when it reached 1000 degrees Celsius. Taken out with a big metal tool, placed on a stone plate, melting horse hair on it. When it’s cooled down, you brush it off and have an bizarre and beautiful vessel. Note: human hair is too fine and will completely burn away upon touching the surface.
