For the past fifteen years, I have worked exclusively with stoneware ceramics, a technique which is dependent on the temperature at which the clay is fired - around 1260°c to 1320°c. On my return from extensive travels throughout Asia, my first two years here in Tuscany were spent developing ash glazes. Glazed pottery first appeared in China around 1500 BC - probably by chance as kilns became more advanced, and hotter, and the white-hot wood ash carried through the kiln by flame and draught, came to rest on the shoulders and rims of pots. The ash reacting with the surface of the clay produced a liquid coating – the first glaze.
I witnessed this almost magical process for the first time at the French pottery village of La Borne - and was immediately hooked. To understand the alchemy, and to participate, is truly a wonderful experience, but it is a precarious procedure. There is, however, another way of producing this type of glaze by making a liquid containing wood ash, clay, and sometimes rock, which is applied directly to the pots before firing in a gas or even a wood burning kiln. The wood burning kilns I have built and fired both in England and Italy, have been short-firing, down-draught - which means that there is not sufficient ash flying around the kiln chamber to cover the surface with glaze. But as the pots reach stoneware temperature, the ash solution already applied to the pots melts, and a glaze is produced. With this method, ashes from any source can be used. I have had great success with the ash of the Chianti vines, after the farmers have pruned in January, but more often the ash is simply taken from the workshop wood burning stove, after ensuring that it is free from plastic and other synthetic substances. In my opinion some of the most beautiful glazes can be produced in this way.

In my recent work I have made a return to vapour glazing. Back in 1988 on Green Island, in the studio of Guy Sydenham, I discovered the technique of salt glazing. This is a fusion of silica and sodium, the sodium coming from the salt, or sodium carbonate, and the silica being already present in the clay. The gas kiln is heated to around 1260°c and a solution of sodium bicarbonate is sprayed directly into the path of the flame. The sodium vapour then suffuses the air space and penetrates throughout the stack of pots, producing beautiful, poetic blushes and patterns. Small vases can be used as shields to protect other pieces from the full blast of soda vapour. This process of soda glazing takes one to two hours, with the kiln reaching 1300°c, at which time the fuel is cut, the kiln allowed to cool rapidly to 1100°c, then kept closed for 24 hours. For this process I use a clay from La Borne in France together with ball clay slips from England and of course a little help from the Tuscan sunshine!

My preferred method of making pots is throwing on the wheel, a skill I learnt as a professional production thrower many years ago. I now work only on one-off pieces, with sometimes a small run of mugs just to keep my eye in. Whilst a difficult skill to master, it is immediate, sensual and rewarding. The dynamic energy that I put into it is captured and passed on to others in the orbital lines and finger marks left in the clay as it spins. When vapour glazed, all the irregularities are accentuated, further increasing the individuality of each product.

My craft gives me enormous satisfaction. The work is exhausting, often literally back-breaking and sometimes, like most creative labours, heart-breaking. But I would do nothing else. The rewards I reap in terms of quality of life and peace within myself are immeasurable.

                      Terry Davies