Overglaze Colorants for Cone Six Glazes

A Paper Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School, University of Minnesota, Duluth, A Requirement for the Degree Master of Arts (Plan B), by Ben Levine, June 1968.During the spring and summer of 1967, as an undergraduate student about to enter graduate school, the problem of writing a paper and having a graduate exhibit was uppermost in my mind. Looking back to my undergraduate studies in ceramics I found it had been quite rewarding and I was not as satisfied with the challenge of decoration. In pottery a truly authentic statement is a challenge. To meet this challenge and develop the creative insights needed, I embarked upon a series of experiments using ceramic coloring oxides. The ceramic colorants were to be used as decorative elements to enhance a particular form. Too often, testing, experimentation, and the various processes of surface involvement have become ends in themselves. Pottery, instead of being expressive, or fitted for its purpose, has been merely the vehicle for a display of dexterity and technique. The artist potter is constantly searching and exploring for new ideas and ways to perpetuate his existence. In this paper I have tried to present a useful exposition of the materials and methods which are available to the studio potter in the development of ceramic colorants to be used as overglaze decorations on pottery. This study has revealed many exciting discoveries that perhaps are known to many. Those of us who have found this direction know that the resolvement of a problem is one of the most important factors in man's existence