My dear lovely friend Susan is a strong woman. She has been through the Fire and came out the other side over and over again. The story of the planters I’ve been making for her have a similar story.
If you follow my blog you saw my previous posts about the three planters I was designing and making for her. I wanted them strong and feminine like she is. The first set although gorgeous, did not survive the first fire. So I adjusted the design and made three new pots.
These pots dried for a very long time. I was not having a kiln disaster again. And Voila….out the came ready to glaze.
As I began to glaze these pots, I loved them, but I felt something was missing, although beautiful and fragile, I wasn’t seeing the strength I wanted to portray. Susan is above all strong and fierce and a survivor, that element felt lacking in this design. My hope was that as I glazed and only used clear glaze for most of the pot, the clay’s lightly speckled beauty would give a sense of concrete or stone. This was the hardest glazing job I have ever done. I am slipshod at best and like that haphazard end result. This needed to be done differently. I painted each pearl, and each design element painstakingly by hand.
The next day they went into the kiln for the final fire. Oh what a long 24 hours that was. I was anxious to see if the strength came through and if I smudged anything or even were they too pristine.
I open the lid and look at the top shelf…lovely! Oh Yay! The first two were wonderful. I lifted the shelf and found the final biggest pot…are you kidding me? A compression crack…oh my God why did this happen to Susan’s pots AGAIN. Structurally sound, but a crack none the less. I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t even think straight. I unloaded them and set them aside while I gave myself a few days to consider options.
As I set them aside and walked away, a thought popped in my head “kin tsugi”. I could attempt this centuries old Japanese technique. The story is as old as time. An Emperor’s favorite bowl broke. He asked the ceramic masters to fix it. Instead of a traditional fix, the masters used gold to bind the parts together. The Emperor loved the bowl more because it wasn’t perfect, yet in some way it was more beautiful because of what it went through.
I read up on various methods of kin tsugi and gave it a shot. I bought gold powder and epoxy, I mixed them together and filled the crack. It was strong and secure, yet the gold wasn’t coming through as I had hoped. I had gold glaze I purchased and never used. I did a final fill of the crack with that, it emphasized the repair in the way I envisioned.
I stepped back and looked at the pots and realized the pearls looked too white, it was almost jarring. I decided to sponge gold lightly across all the pearls to make them look antiqued. I am completely pleased with the results.
While the dilemma with the crack was happening, I had planned weeks earlier to see Susan, my original plan was to bring the pots to her. Susan had to back out of the get together to deal with a personal, horribly sad situation. Yet again Susan being tested.
I finished the pots today. I love the kin tsugi addition, it is actually the element that was missing. Sue girl-These are for you, in all your amazing, loving, kind fierce, beautiful glory. Never forget how much you are loved. You amaze me, I count myself luck to know you.
