My name is...

Nuka, I glaze on the second floor... I glaze upstairs from you...

okay, I'll stop now.

Yesterday I spent the entire, sweaty afternoon mixing three different glazes. One of which was nuka. All day the Suzanne Vega song was stuck in my head with Nuka substituted for Luka.

Jeff can take the blame for this silliness...

When he was working at the production pottery in NH, he and his fellow potters passed the time by singing popular songs and switching the words out with pottery terms.

Wild horses, couldn't drag me through clay... Rolling Stones "Wild Horses"
Creamers, Sugars and Creamers, well can you put your hands on your clay oh no... Supertramp's "Dreamers"

Squish the little babies and make them throw cups..... Ween "Push Th' Little Daisies" (google it if you aren't familiar with Ween)

I am sure there are more, as well as the "Movie" versions of the production pottery, but THAT could be a whole other post and I am not going there.


Back to glaze mixing (much more serious business!)... I used to use nuka all the time when I was making pots at NH Institute of Art. It was one of their more consistent glazes so I used a lot of that and spodumene. When something works when you have little or no control over the glaze or the firing, YOU STICK TO IT. I am looking forward to glazing pots with it again, and see what it will do in our own kiln of which we THINK we have control over. I also mixed a batch of glaze called peach blossom. It's one that JZ had tested during the last few months he worked in the studio. He had mixed a small batch and tested it on porcelain...

Looks like the test got a little beat up during the move, but we didn't manage to lose it, or the recipe!

I couldn't find his tests on stoneware, but I am sure it will look great. I think it will be a good color for some piggy banks. The kiln is firing as I type and there are tests of the nuka  and peach blossom in there.

My name is Nuka...