First of all, let me describe a 'holey bowl'. It is a smallish, very thinly thrown porcelain bowl which has been hand-incised into a pattern which often leaves more empty spaces than solid pieces. After bisque-firing it is glazed and finally rakued.
The first step to making a holey bowl is to throw the thinnest bowl you can manage. For this I use either ^6 porcelain or a porcelainous white stoneware such as B-mix 5.
Note the hairdryer in the above picture. This is used to stiffen the thrown bowl until soft leather-hard. The foot should already be defined.
Now invert the bowl on the wheel and finish turning the foot, making sure that the base of the bowl is as thin as the walls, which will probably need more trimming to make them really thin.
Use the hairdryer again so that the foot-rim will not distort when the bowl is once again placed upright on the decorating wheel. I have an old kickwheel for this purpose, but a banding wheel may also be used.
Now take a fine, sharp carving tool, such as a simple Kemper cleanup tool. A fine needle tool will also do the job. Starting from the top, make cut-outs in the clay so that a pattern is formed by what is left. These patterns may be geometrical or not, and as intricate as you wish. It is my experience that the more cut-outs there are, the more likely it is for the bowl to survive the raku firing. However, should one of the cut-outs break the clay forming the design, do not try to repair it. The result may well survive the bisque firing, but will almost certainly crack in the raku kiln. If possible, modify your design forming larger cut-outs. If this is not feasible, discard the bowl. Fairly frequently the bowl will crack at the rim. The only solution to this is to remove the rim portion entirely and form a new one using the lower part of the bowl. However, this is a risky procedure because the rim is usually fairly hard by the time it cracks, and will break even more easily if tampered with.
Once the design has been completed, make sure that the thickness of the wall is the same throughout and trim off any excess. Finally use a damp piece of fine sponge to carefully rub over the surface of the bowl removing any rough edges.
As the bowl is extremely thin and light, it will dry almost immediately and can be bisque-fired within hours if necessary. In order to retain a body which is as strong and sonorous as possible, I do not advise a low temperature bisque, even though it is much easier to apply glaze to such porous pieces and they survive the raku firing with ease. The end result is just to fragile and unpleasant to the touch, feeling more like cardboard than porcelain. For this reason I bisque fire my holey bowls to 1100Cº
Glaze the bisqued bowl with your favourite raku glazes. I you find they are hard to apply, heat up the bowl to as hot as your hands can bear.
Fire them in your raku kiln in your usual manner, remove them with tongs and reduce with newspaper or whatever you normally use. The bowls may be quenched in a bucket of water or left alone. They are not in the least bit fragile. Finally, I scrub them vigourously with steel wool soap pads and unblock any cut-outs which have become obstructed with glaze. For this you can use a Dremel tool or a simple nail.
Holey bowls with fish-designs
The most important aspect of making these bowls is to have plenty of patience and not become angry if a bowl breaks when you have almost finished carving. Just start all over again. Depending on size and design, a bowl takes me from three to six hours to finish. I rarely throw them larger than 9" in diameter. I find the whole process very relaxing and good for the nerves, and with a few years of practise they very rarely break when I am incising. Losses during the raku firing are also minimal if the bowl has been correctly formed and carved.
Copyright F.Melville 1998
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