Ceramic books in saggar firing.

I taught a saggar firing class at the RAC a few months ago. This is a process where bisqued pieces are placed in a container and filled up with combustibles and other goodies to produce wild and organic surfaces on the clay. I won't go into massive detail because the web is full of sites on the process, just google "saggar" and you'll be all set.

I started making ceramic books because I was so disgusted with my other pieces I was trying to do at the time. They were forced and contrived. I wanted freedom. So I just asked myself "What the hell do I feel like making?" I wanted to make giant ceramic books. Big as me. Well. I don't have the resources at the time to do that. But I thought, I could make the models for giant ceramis books, so that's what I started to do.

I was doing a demo in my sculpture class (pressing clay into dry ceramic material for alternative surfaces) and decided on the spot to do it while constructing the little book. This came out so cool, I thought, geez. Why can't I just make these? I know I know blah blah blah. For me there always has to be this huge master plan.

Anyway. The pieces made in my sculpture class became the demos in my saggar class. So here are some of the results. The second book with the drawing incised into it is actually one of the earlier "model" books and is a little boring. In my next post I'll talk about where the image came from. The funny thing about blogs is that they read from the top down, but you post from the bottom up. I guess that might make sense, but if you're trying to develop an idea you kind of have to plan backwards. This time I remembered to post the pictures first, so the'd go after this text. Yeah me.