John Britt, My Glaze Hero

John Britt with SOME of the tiles he brought with him, showing the logic of what we were doing in the workshop. He had 40+ base glazes, and a sheet with 11 colorants that would get added to each glaze. Each person in the workshop made a different base glaze, made 11 different versions and applied each of those to tiles made from 3 different kinds of clay.

There are thousands and thousands of glaze recipes online and in print. But John Britt’s books have such a well organized variety, I just don’t bother looking elsewhere. His YouTube free glaze class is amazing, when I came back to ceramics after many years, it not only removed the rust from what I could remember but gave me a more thorough understanding than I had before. I really didn’t want to do another workshop so soon after the Josh DeWeese one at Peters Valley, but it was John Britt close to home, how could I pass it up? 

John Britt showing my notebook to the class! The notebook is where I keep track of glazes I'm developing, mostly from local materials.

After making my own paint, I already had ground up rock when I started teaching ceramics, so it was a pretty natural segue for me to start formulating glazes. It’s true I also listened to lots of Phil Berneberg’s videos and read a bunch of good books, but John Britt is definitely my glaze hero. As much as I’ve learned on my own, I had never taken a class specifically in glazes. John was so systematic and organized in the way he structured the class that it helped me organize my own thinking about glaze development, and how I might present things to my more advanced students. 

I was particularly interested in the tiles you see in the front; it's a "fake reduction" copper red. My first attempt at mixing this glaze came out gorgeous-but nothing like the copper red you see here. Hmm, I've got my homework cut out for me.

The workshop was hosted by Kettle Creek Pottery, a really lovely pottery studio owned by Amy Manson. It was a great group of people. My moment if glory is when John asked me if he could show my notebook to the class! I got a photo of him holding up my notebook which I of course pasted into that notebook.