The Glaze Spectrum is the culmination of 3 years hard graft from artist Helen Love. After countless hours of experimentation, Helen has compiled a comprehensive glaze cook book to help ceramic artist standardise their glazing techniques and achieve specific colour's and effect's with more consistency. Of course when dealing with fired ceramics and glazes nothing is ever quite the same with a huge number of variables and I've read countless stories of experienced ceramicists being less than pleased by their end results.
There's a lot of factors which can affect the finished results and over the years Helen became interested in trying to create a resource that could be of benefit not just to herself but to the wider creative community. With the help of Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, Helen has created the Glaze Spectrum, a comprehensive guide that provides technical data with regards to the formula for each colour along with finished example photos which have been painstakingly colour corrected to give the most accurate representation. You'll notice the differences even in my own photographs of the Glaze Spectrum housed in Helen's workshop at Grays School of Art. Helen very kindly sat down for an interview about the project and gave me a tour of the studio.
Thanks for having me over Helen. Can I start by asking how the Glaze Spectrum came about?
The Art Gallery approached me to make a glaze library and I jumped at the chance! I liked stripping away the arcane secrecy of glazing and making it seem elementary but keeping its mysterious allure. It's about understanding why things happen, why certain colours appear and how to enhance them, yet still being taken by the magic of it. You're mixing mostly white and beige ground powders of rock and clay and firing them to jewel colours. It's like a superpower!
While making the glazes I collected a lot of data and thought its a waste not to use it to create a resource that would be beneficial to students and other ceramicists. So I decided to make a database and approached Design & Code to create a way to display it which we're currently crowdfunding for.
I'm not sure anyone at RGU quite gets what I'm trying to do with this website, how useful it will be for students and the wider ceramics community or how it will put Grays (shcool of art) out there as somewhere to study ceramics. But I couldn't have even begun this project without access to the glaze lab and kilns at the school.
You mentioned making quite a lot of test tiles to get the finished versions of the spectrum, how long did this take and were there any problems?
There are 456 tiles in each set and I made at least 3 times that but many did not work out so a huge pile of rejects. Total 2500 test tiles maybe? I was working on it for a couple of years. Summer 2017 I was coming in and mixing 20 glazes a day. My arms got sore lifting down the boxes of raw materials so I figured out to lay them all out all over the glaze room and take the scales from box to box measuring out. It's a bit like baking. I love the names of the ingredients, they have a sort of alchemical ring to them like spodumene, nephylene syenite, potash feldspar. I was completely addicted.
For the project to work you must have taken quite a lot of notes and of course made some discoveries along the way. We're there any suprises that you want to share or did anything happen that you weren't expecting?
I kept Excel spreadsheets on all the data collected throughout. Now that I understand the chemical processes a bit it seems so obvious but for example a celadon glaze with iron oxide in it can become golden in an electric kiln but pale grey blue in a gas kiln. The flame in the gas kiln is taking the oxygen from the orange iron oxide (think rust) and returning it to grey blue iron.
It's even more dramatic with copper oxide. The very same glaze is turquoise in the electric kiln but red in the gas one. Copper oxide is greenish (think verdigirs copper roofs, HMT / Art Gallery); copper itself is reddish. One thing I discovered was slow cooling iron reds made them brighter.
I had everything numbered and coded for the gallery to put the tiles up but the opening night was the first time I saw it up on the wall completed. I was relieved! They lit it up so beautifully so that the colours really pop and the fact its not behind glass means you can touch it which makes it feel different from the other pieces in the cabinets. I was also rushing around looking for the interactive tactile pieces of glass and ceramics that I'd made for the Art Deco section and Crafting Colour room to see how they were presented. I'm really proud of them too, go and have a feel!
It's been a huge undertaking over the course of 3 years to get to this point but it's not been a lonely one. Who are some of the people you've worked with along the way that have helped get to this point?
Technicians at Grays are great for solidarity and Fergus, our photography tech, was a huge help getting the photos of the tiles for the website looking just right. If you're presenting a spectrum then the accuracy of the colours really matters.
The students at Grays helped by trying out the glazes, a few even contributed glazes they'd invented. If you invent a glaze you get to name it!
Design & Code have been great from the first moment I approached them. They saw my vision of a website that was accessible, intuitive, instructive and beautiful all at the same time and then they made it real! A really friendly, laid back and clever bunch.
My daughter Naomi Christie helped with the photography, taught me how to work Instagram and came up with the idea to create a website.
I made it along to the Grays Staff Pecha Kucha event and was amazed
to hear about your own time at art school and the spirit of punk that seemed to
be part of your foundations during that time and even now you have a DIY and
hands on approach to working. Who are some of the artists that have influenced
you or who’s work you enjoy?
It's never been a conscious decision to be non conformist or subversive in my work. I just ended up melting holes in my stained glass. I'm always experimenting.
I like Pauline Boty's pop art collages. On Instagram I'm fascinated by Australian artist Cita Daidone who keeps arranging ceramic moth wings in patterns. Up at Northlands Glass in Lybster I learnt a lot from Bertil Vallein; the way sandcast glass catches the light is something else! I figured out how to it in the kiln though it's not quite as exciting as pouring glass hot from the furnace into sand moulds. Northlands is also where I met the fabulous kitschy glass blower Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen.
I've just binge watched Canadian glass blowing competition 'Blown Away' on Netflix and love Deborah Czeresko's glass sausages.
There are two pieces in the extension at His Majesty's. The print enamelled glass stair risers represent a rock crevice opening like a curtain and something very exciting flickering out. Upstairs on the restaurant wall are 4 glowing cast glass rocks and patinated copper sheet. The moulds for these were made using silicone sealant and an impression taken directly from the rock floor of Lybster harbour in Caithness. They're cast in window glass which gives them a sea green tinge.
I had an exhibition in the Faroe Islands in 2002. I made structured glass sculptures and a 10 metre long drawing. It was meant to be an exchange with Trondur Patursson and he and his wife invited me to dinner. He is a real character, a Faroese glass artist who has travelled to America in a leather boat and all sorts. But his work is huge and never made it to Aberdeen.
I would love to do it all again. It was working that project that made me feel like making art could be a viable job.
After a bit of a break will you be working on any of your own projects
and if so what can we expect?
I won't be taking a break as I feel really energised just now. I'm going to make stuff, glass probably, and drawings. I have some ideas for political protest pieces. Also there are some glaze recipes I haven't tried yet.
There's been some major breaks in my creativity with having children and then later losing my eldest son. I was just concentrating on keeping it together for a while there. I'm creating again so I can't stop now. Sacha was a graffiti artist so I keen an interest in street art going for him. I like the facts it's accessible, there is less elitism than some artistic mediums.
With the Glaze Spectrum website now live, have you had any feedback? Student's have been testing out some of the recipes, any thoughts from them?
Students that have seen the website so far seemed excited, especially since they've been working from crumpled spreadsheet print outs of the recipes for the last few years. It's going to be so practical for them to use.
It was difficult to get financial support for the website because the project didn't seem to fit any criteria for available funding or grants but it was serendipity that we ended up crowd funding for it because the expectation for the website is already out there from contributors and Instagram followers. A lovely group of students from City Lit ceramics course in London sent money and made contact with our students at the New Designers trade fair last year which is great. We are still fundraising though.
I won't be taking a break as I feel really energised just now. I'm going to make stuff, glass probably, and drawings. I have some ideas for political protest pieces. Also there are some glaze recipes I haven't tried yet.
There's been some major breaks in my creativity with having children and then later losing my eldest son. I was just concentrating on keeping it together for a while there. I'm creating again so I can't stop now. Sacha was a graffiti artist so I keen an interest in street art going for him. I like the facts it's accessible, there is less elitism than some artistic mediums.
With the Glaze Spectrum website now live, have you had any feedback? Student's have been testing out some of the recipes, any thoughts from them?
Students that have seen the website so far seemed excited, especially since they've been working from crumpled spreadsheet print outs of the recipes for the last few years. It's going to be so practical for them to use.
It was difficult to get financial support for the website because the project didn't seem to fit any criteria for available funding or grants but it was serendipity that we ended up crowd funding for it because the expectation for the website is already out there from contributors and Instagram followers. A lovely group of students from City Lit ceramics course in London sent money and made contact with our students at the New Designers trade fair last year which is great. We are still fundraising though.
Those kilns are workhorses by the way, fired up and cooled down without a break. I love firing the gas kiln too because there are (controlled) flames. Everybody likes a bit of pyromania (that kiln is green and called Yoda)! We're having a launch party at Design & Code's office on the 20th February. The last promo party we had was a great mingling of interested people, students, Design & Code staff and their friends. It felt like everyone had always known each other.
After a lot of hard work the Glaze Spectrum website finally launched yesterday and is now live for everyone and anyone to use. It's been a real team effort but as anyone who knows Helen will attest, you can't help but be inspired by her generous spirit and I think that's a big part of what makes the Glaze Spectrum such a special project. After seeing the facilities at Grays and conducting my own research to help me understand the ceramic and glazing process, I can't wait to have a go at making something myself but the big question is what glaze to try? Baxters Chrome Green Cr#28 looks brilliant but Grey Speckled Cobalt Co#69 might be more in keeping with my palette. Either way ill have a great guide to help me on that journey and the world now has an invaluable glaze resource.
To see the full Glaze Spectrum check out the website here, catch the spectrum at Aberdeen Art Gallery and if you want to support the project you can donate to the crowd funder here. Also be sure to check out the work from the team at Design & Code here. Well done to Helen and everyone involved for creating such a great project. Here's to ramping up for the next one!
