Antique Green Drops By For a Holiday Visit – November 22, 2022 Email

In 2015 we were forced to discontinue one of our most beloved and characteristic glazes – Antique Green. Those of you who remember the glaze will remember its signature dark green hue, scaled texture, and shiny opaque finish. We loved the way Antique Green broke over edges and used this feature to our advantage in pieces with low relief sculpture and variously rounded or sharp rims, shoulders, and feet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left top: Beauty and the Bats (retired 2008), Left bottom: Blossoming Daffodil (retired 2007), Center: Bee and Blackberry (retired 2014), Right: Lone Pine Gorge (retired 2011)

2015 – Loss of Antique Green

Antique Green was always a fussy, fickle glaze. It required more tending than our other glazes and had to be applied just right to achieve the desired effects. So, in 2015, when we moved to an improved clay body and at nearly the same time experienced a shift in our feldspar supply (a key glaze ingredient), we lost Antique Green. Despite a year of testing and hundreds of recipe tests, we simply could not make Antique Green work the way it once had.

Jumble of Antique Green test tiles represent hours of work amidst a material shift that caused the glaze to fail.

Loyalty Bowl in Antique Green was released in our 2015 Catalog, only to be discontinued months later due to issues with the glaze.

2022 – Serendipity and a Tentative Return

Little did we know that adapting our glazes to that first feldspar shift would become a necessary skill. Supply chain issues and mine closures since 2015 have caused two more changes in this material. From the summer of 2020 until summer of 2022 we were working with a feldspar that closely matched our original material. Because of the chemical similarities, we decided to try to replicate some of our discontinued, vintage glazes. Much to our delight, a little bit of experimentation and tinkering led to promising results with our Antique Green glaze.

What Happens Next?

Unfortunately, another supply shift that occurred after we made this single batch of Antique Green, has once again cast doubt on our ability to bring back Antique Green. New testing will be required to see if we can adapt our recipe to the new material. And that is a project for 2023! The one thing that is a constant in our line of business is impermanence. For those that love and appreciate our work – and that green glaze – we know it’s frustrating. However, we prefer to look at it a different way – everything is temporary – a reminder to keep moving forward and making the most of the materials we have to work with at a given moment.

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