Salt Glaze Ceramics

SALT GLAZE CERAMICS SALT GLAZE CERAMICS Salt Glaze: Some Historical Notes 3 Marvin D. Schwartz Contemporary Salt Glaze Ceramics 9 Salt Glaze Process 13 Don Reitz The Pollution Aspects of Salt Glaze Firing 18 Charl es Hendricks Don Pilcher Crock. Late 19th Century. G. W Fulper & Bros., Flemington, N.J. Decorated by John Kunsman. Collection, The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey. 2 Salt Glaze: Large simple jugs, elaborate tankards, and delicate teapots Some Historical Notes are among the objects that were made of salt glaze or salt glazed stoneware when it was in its prime between 1500 and Marvin D. Schwartz 1800. Examples ranged from the purely utilitarian to fashion Lecturer, Metropolitan Museum of Art able decorative pieces. The salt glaze body could be thin and white or grey, or thick and brown, depending upon needs of the moment. Not as easily made as earthenware, nor as difficult to produce as porcelain, salt glaze represents a popular useful product that was important over a long period. The origins of salt glaze can be traced back to Germany where it was developed some time before 1500. It was intro duced during the period when majolica was coming into fashion in Italy, but the contrast between the German and the Italian Crock. U.S., 1841. Collection, The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey. Vase. Clay Crafters, North Carolina Potters. Early 20th Century (purchased 1927). Collection, The Newark Museum, Newark , New Jersey. 3 Teapot with lid. English, Staffordshire area. Circa 1750-1780. Collection, The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey. 4 efforts is striking. Italians used a familiar traditional ceramic Although no real tradition for producing fine salt glaze was body, tinglazed earthenware, while the Germans devised a established, it did become an important medium for functional technique for producing a non-porous ceramic with a new kind wares in the 17th and 18th centuries. Tavern mugs, jugs, and a of glaze. Majolica designs were in the latest Renaissance number of other containers were made of thick salt glaze in grey fashion; salt glaze forms were based on medieval models but or brown with occasional additions of blue or purple decoration. decoration was generally up-to-date. Once securely established in the Rhineland, the technique Salt glaze was used by German potters for useful wares and spread to other parts of the continent and to England. for examples decorated with rich relief or intaglio patterns. The Excavations at Colonial Williamsburg have turned up both fashionable pieces reflected the German approach to the German and English salt glaze mugs. Renaissance in designs that combine realism and classicism Toward the end of the 17th century efforts at producing in a way reminiscent of Durer. Mythological scenes, and porcelain resulted in the manufacture of a second phase of naturalistic representations of forests were two of the subjects found on salt glaze. Platter. Tea caddy and lid. Staffordshire. English, 1750-1755. Staffordshire area. Collection, Circa 1750. The Newark Museum, Collection, Newark, New Jersey. The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey. delicate salt glaze. John Dwight made this porcelain-like salt confused with porcelain if its orange-rind texture was not glaze in the 1690s at an English pottery. Salt glaze later was noticed. Chinese porcelain was a major inspiration for the salt consciously employed as a substitute for porcelain. English and glaze forms that were in fashion between 1720 and 1780. French potters made a fine , thin, white salt glaze that might be The utilitarian salt glaze of the 18th and 19th centuries is best known in American examples. The first efforts dated as Tankard. Circa 1700-1755. early as the 1730s, but the more familiar efforts date after the Germany. Revolution. Examples vary from those thrown on the wheel Collection, and in traditional shapes to those cast in molds in distinctive The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey. forms of the 19th century. Timeless designs are mixed with those th at reflect the classical interests of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Blue and scratch decoration were applied to the American examples. Again, classicism is a factor, but so is ,.. Crock. Molded applied decoration in relief. Probably U.S. late 19th Century. Collecti on. The Newark Museum, 6 Newark, New Jersey. a primitivism that became one of the most charming aspects Falke, Otto von, Das Rheinische Steinzeug. Berlin. 1908. of 19th century art. ~ a nnover , Emil (edited by B. Rackham) . Fine or utilitarian, salt glaze has a definite esthetic that puts ~/ 'po tt e ry and Porcelain. 3 vol. New York or London. 1925. it apart from either earthenware or porcelain. It has been a Mounttard, Arnold R., Staffordshire Salt-glazed Stoneware. field of great variety. It should be a source of strong inspiration. New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc. 1971. Schwartz, Marvin D. , Collectors' Guide to Antique American References Ceramics. Garden City: Doubleday & Company. 1969. Barber, Edwin Allee, Salt Glazed Stoneware. Watkins, Lura W., Early New England Potters and Their Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company. 1907. Wares. Massachusetts: Archon Books. 1968. ~ Blacke r , J. F., The ABC of EnglishSaltglaze. London. 1922. 7 Sculptural forms by Don Reitz. Hand built, salt glaze ceramic. (L) 23W' x 9\4" (R) 24" x 9\4" Contemporary Salt Glaze Ceramics Artists included : William C. Alexander Kenneth Ferguson Jim Makins Donald Reitz Ralph Bacerra Ron Garfinkel Tim Mather Byron Temple Donald V Bendel Karen Karnes Donna L. Nicholas Jack Troy Thorn Collins Steven Kemenyffy Mary Nyburg Betty Woodman Nancy Dudchenko George Kokis Donald Pilcher Mikhail Zakin Covered container by Don Pilcher. Wheel thrown and hand built surface, tin chloride fume, salt glaze. S \14" x 14" 9 Container by Betty Woodman. Wheel thrown, salt glaze ceramic. 12"h xii" dia. Wall sculpture by George Kokis. Wheel thrown, salt glaze, painted ends, formica base. 29 ¥.t " x I OW' Mugs by Ralph Bacerra. Wheel thown, while and blue porcelain, salt glaze. 4 \12 " x 3" 11 Salt Glaze Process Don Reitz Professor of Art University of Wisconsin, Madison Why does one put himself through the hassle of salt glazing? Novelty, a new point of departure, climbing on the bandwagon, because it looks like fun-these are some of the reasons. But'the main reason is simply that the object demands it. In one's aesthetic judgment salt fire is the best to give visual reality to an idea. The object would not be successful by any other process. In my view, 75 % of all con temporary salt glazed objects do not succeed because the object has nothing to do with that type of fire. One of the great qualities of salt firing is its ability to reveal rather than conceal the clay. All the beautiful scars, finger marks, scratches, and undulations of the clay are enhanced and become a signature. The forms gain a free spontaneous feeling that is impossible to achieve by any other fire. Cold and hot spots in the kiln, fire flashes, sodium build-up, and even drips from the kiln itself can add beauty. Salt firing is challenging, exciting, and unpredictable but most of all it is a way of life. Process Historically, salt glazing was used extensively in Europe from about 1500 and later in the American colonies up to the early 1900s. It was a simple and inexpensive means of rendering clay products waterproof and achieving a glassy surface. The studio potter as well as industry employed this technique on such products as crockery, mugs, vases, sewer pipe, roofing tile, building brick and tiles, bam gutters, acid and dye jars, laboratory equipment, etc. Within the last six years it has enjoyed a rebirth via the artist! craftsman. Salt glazing has been revived in the U. S. in much the same manner as raku: the artist/ craftsman has taken an old process and set it free to develop and grow to new maturity. As in raku, technological advances have had little to do with the revival. The craftsman's thirst for discovery, experimentation, and redefinitions have been the life force. The present unlimited color possibilities in salt glaze illustrate this experimentation, for in the past salt glazed products were always brown, gray, buff, or occasionally blue. The process itself is rather simple: ware is placed in a kiln, fired to its mature temperature and common salt introduced into the kiln. The salt (chemically, sodium chloride) melts and volatilizes. Silica in the clay attracts sodium to form a glassy silicate on the surface of the ware. Chloride changes to chlorine gas in the kiln. As it leaves the hot kiln it combines with hydrogen in the air and becomes hydrochloric acid. This acid is a serious concern discussed under "kilns:' Colors are produced by the types of clays, slips and stains used. Salt firing may 13 be done from cone 04 to cone 12 depending on the clay body and 72" high inside. It is a sprung arch kiln. I feel this gives more load desired effects. space. Any type of kiln construction wi1l work. Analyze your needs and Kilns the dimensions of the kiln wi1l follow. After one has examined the pros and cons of salt glazing and gained There are many types of bricks on the market and I have used many knowledge of the process, the first step is to decide on a location of them. (Go to any brickyard and ask.) Selection of bricks depends on for the kiln. Ventilation is a principal concern. The hydrochloric acid how long you want the kiln to last, how many bricks will be needed, produced during firing is a real problem, particularly to the person and the cost per brick.

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