Salt Soda and Wood - A Success! Part I

Well the show that I was participating in closed near the end of August - and by all reports was a great success - we even sold lots of pots! We (Tim Storey - salt, Dan Hill - soda and me - wood) have kilns all within half an hour of each other and work independently. This time, although we would use our own kilns, we would also put a few pieces in each others' kilns which was exciting and so we had a few representative pieces fired three different ways. As there were three different potters, three different styles and three different methods of firing there was always something for visitors to like!
(I have to apologize for the pictures - they are not the best - I always am too impatient when taking pictures.)

Below are pictures of Tim's meticulously crafted and very expressive wall birds for which he is justly famous - all roasted 3 different ways. Yum! Tim uses a mixture of metal oxides to colour his creations and in the wood the colours, especially the black on the birds ended more washed out, resulting in more brown and orange tones than in the salt.

In the soda, his bird ended up with turquoise blue colours around the head - we were not sure, but it possibly came from copper fuming . The best wood results I thought were on one of his mortar and pestle sets of which I unfortunately do not have a picture, but there were bright yellow and green flashs as well as the brown and blacks.

Tim Storey's Bird - salt fired

Soda fired

 and wood fired

Tim Storey's Gravy Boats - salt

Tim's regal ocean liner with 3 of his teapots and gravy boats - all salt

Tim's fish and snail teapots - salt.

I really liked his "gravy boats" - went great with his nautical theme of boat teapots. His stately ocean liner boldly held center stage. His reputation for attention to detail - needless to say - is well deserved! His seams are incredibly smooth and he incises a line all around the bottom of his pots, about an 1/4 inch fron the edge and it really makes for a nice surprise when you look at the bottom and also gives it a fine finished look that often handbuilt pots lack. Tim only does handbuilding - he's definitely a master handbuilder - no wheel for him!
For those that live in eastern Ontario and wish to see more of Tim's work he will be part of the Madawaska Valley Studio Tour on Sept 28 and 29.
To be continued.