Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: process, production, stamps, textures, tiles

Towards the end of last year, I had become kind of enamored with my new, slightly larger,
textured tiles. Now don’t get me wrong… they’re by no means large. They’re just a smidge
bigger. And I’m still digging ’em… so I had to make more!!!

By the end of the night, I had pretty much covered my entire work table. So I was done.
I put all of my tiles on a plastic grid so they can dry more evenly. It doesn’t always work,
but they seem to dry more evenly, with less warpage, when they have air drying them from
all sides, top & bottom. It’s a little “trick” I learned from friend & tile-maker Mike Skiersch.
It’s a simple “trick” using the plastic grids they put in suspended ceilings to help “hide” the
fluorescent light fixtures. Any hardware store has them… and they’re pretty darn cheap!!!

9 Comments

January 15th, 2013

I like it!

carolyn

April 11th, 2013

Fabulous work.

Ofelia Castañeda

January 1st, 2014

Great tips, thanks for sharing

vanuzia

January 21st, 2015

azulejos

Robin

January 27th, 2015

They look great but how do you actually make them? I’d really love to know exactly how you made them and what kind of clay you used.
Thank you,
Robin

Karen

February 21st, 2015

Great work and great tip!

March 15th, 2015

ROBIN – I make a slab of clay. Sometimes I texture the slab and then cut squares. Other times I cut squares and then add texture. Most of the time I add some colored flashing slips before bisque firing. That layer of colored clay makes the actual clay body not so important. I use a few different kinds of stoneware. The tiles dry, get bisque fired and then I get them ready for firing in the soda kiln. Some of them get a slight sprayed coating of glaze before firing just for some random pops of color. Each of them gets a ball of wadding as they are placed in the kiln. A good cone 10 reduction soda firing does most of the work. The soda atmosphere creates the glossy shine, transforms some of the flashing slips and helps accentuate the textures. I hope that answers some of your questions?!

Cielo Brown

November 13th, 2016

Do you leave the grids directly on the table? Or are they placed on a wire shelf that lets air come up from below as well?

November 14th, 2016

CIELO – I raise the grids up about an inch or so with some wood boards. I want a good amount of air flow under the grids for more even drying. I think if the grids were flat on the table you wouldn’t get the same benefits.

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