Unruly Glazes

Love em' but sometimes those unruly glazes can be disappointing..as with the batch from this last firing..only about half were acceptable..the others will require ReGlazing..ugh..never a fun thing..but better than losing all that work . Last night while sorting out the Ok's from the funky I started to reflect about clay and being a "potter".
Potters are alchemists, turning one material into another completely different thing.. and we must be drawn to the excitement of how it all works ..anticipation is high when approaching that cooled kiln. After putting in all those hours of work,it comes down to the firing, sometimes there is a fabulous surprise awaiting or there can be that moment of thinking "What the heck happened in here?". I prefer to work with glazes that have some life to them ,a certain unpredictability..clay itself does have a mind of it's own, add the glaze and those pieces are alive.. glass workers must experience somewhat the same thing. The outcome should be a certain way but sometimes, for some reason it takes a turn. Potters also need to have a certain level of detachment in order to cope with those moments of opening that kiln door to find true disasters..not just some glazes that didn't mature ,but melt downs and explosions( thank you Kiln Devas I rarely have those) and mighty glaze malfunctions..all which hopefully decrease with experience..but ceramics is not a cut and paste craft ..more like a bee on a string.
These worked..not showing the funkies.