carga de horno

Six pots going into the small kiln, ready to be glaze fired. 

The problems with glazing highly detailed ceramics

Really this should be entitled: "The issues/challenges with glazing highly detailed Pedro Ramirez ceramics" because the issues I have are not really problems... then again I digress because maybe they are.  The problem with my highly detailed sculptures consisting of birds, flowers, occational animals and plants, are that low fire (and even cone 10 in fact) glazes can gob over and totally round out all of my sharp edges and just make the entire composition of delicate details look like lumpy volcanic lava.  I have overcome this issue by using very thin glazes, and sometimes no glaze at all.  Ceramics can be covered in wax or polish, or other sealants, but lately I have just been using very thin glazes, achieving any colors needed/wanted by using washes, stains, and thin underglazes.  The two pots glazed in clear will actually have matte areas which appear unglazed but areas of shine will appear here and there.  In the next firing cycle I want to actually dip a white pot in clear glaze and see how the details (since it is clear glaze afterall) are affected, I might like what I see.  So, want to do super detailed ceramic work and not lose that detail? Use thin glazes and by all means experiment.

slip, glaze, underglaze, engobe, overglaze, time pt 2

slip, glaze, underglaze, engobe, overglaze, time

big bisque (six works inside)

Comfortable

Simple, inspired by the hands behind work.

Seated figure

Stacked Birds Throw Away

This is the latest!

I have to say that the work in life does not seem quite as busy as in these photos, and there is no real sense of volume, but we do as best we can to depict the pots properly.
So, a lot going on here, this work is different and also in some ways similar to the other pots I have made recently.  You might notice the central figure is clothed or covered up, her texture is like the roughness of the life encircling her... still bordered by the naked texture of the original thrown pot.  This figure is like a woodland nymph, nature allegory, her hair like flames or bark... she is very abstracted, almost twisted and deformed, she actually has no bottom, her skirt flaring out like flower petals to reveal a secret opening, blocked by stacked versions of stylized birds.  She has symbols of abundance around her waist, fruit, flowers, and growth forms.  On either side of her, shoots, stems, sprouts, and fungi emerge and climb upward, on the left of the pot where her opening points, a cascade of flowers runs down towards the base of the pot, there are fruits reminiscent of pineapples, strawberries, apples and grapes.  This left side of the pot is very abundant, there are stacked root vegetables and what looks like eggs.  On the right of the pot is a different approach.  Instead of growing forms, towards the bottom of the sculpted portions, there are simply placed objects, this is the cast away part of the commentary, the temporariness of modern convenience, basically trash.  You can identify cups, mugs, bowls, square objects, forks, spoons, some sort of ladle or shovel, and a plate, all showing the other side of things, the man made and discarded part of life.