Sailing Directions · Chapter 2
Tide Flats
Forty serving bowls, and a winter spent teaching one blue glaze where to stop.
| Position | S shore, dries at low water |
|---|---|
| Occasion | Spring design market, Ottakring |
| Quantity | 40 bowls, 60 test tiles |
| Material | Stoneware, unglazed exterior |
| Glaze | Tile 47, a blue that runs and stops |
| Status | Sold out. Recipe in daily use |
Description
A run of forty serving bowls for a two-day design market. The idea was one line on each bowl, two-thirds of the way up, where blue glaze gives way to bare clay, like the mark the tide leaves on a harbour wall.
Works undertaken
Dipping a bowl gives a hard, wobbly edge, which looks like a mistake. Thomas wanted the glaze to find its own line in the kiln: run down just far enough and stop.
He spent a winter on it. Sixty test tiles, each with a slightly different amount of silica and a slightly different thickness of glaze. Tile 47 did it: a blue that slides about a centimetre in the firing and then holds, leaving a soft edge that looks like water that has just gone out. Below the line he left the clay bare and sanded it until it felt like a stone from a beach.
Changes since last survey
All forty bowls sold on the first morning of the market. Tile 47 is now the base for everything blue Thomas makes. And “where does the glaze stop?” became the first question he asks about every new piece, before shape or size.
CAUTIONThe bare clay below the tide line is porous. Wipe, don’t soak.