Amazing Porcelain Shapes and Crystalline Glaze Josh Pehrson Ceramics

Amazing Porcelain Shapes and Crystalline Glazes – Josh Pehrson Ceramics

May 7, 2010

This is some recent work from Josh Pehrson which were created over the last few months. Highly productive output!

Josh Pearson Bio :

Josh Pehrson was born in 1974 in St. Peter, Minnesota and raised in Fergus Falls. “My passion has always been to be an inventor every day of my life” says Pehrson. Like so many great artists, his works have taken on many mediums. An accomplished woodworker, he apprenticed for four years at a custom shop in St. Paul where he built, repaired, and restored antiquated pieces of Victorian mansions. A love for designing and building motorcycles has also helped hone many of his talents. He was introduced to wheel thrown pottery by his friend and mentor Lori Charest. Josh’s fascination with crystal glazes started three years ago and since then it has become an obsession. Combined with great skill, craftsmanship, and artistic sense, these stunning crystalline pieces reflect his influences from life.

The Crystalline Process- explanation by Josh.

Over two hundred years ago crystals accidentally appeared on porcelain pottery in China.

What was, at first seen as a mistake, is today pursued and valued.craftsmanship

The same forces (temperature and time) that create the diamonds, rubies, and sapphires we wear as jewelry, also create the spectacular patterns and colors you see on these pieces of pottery.

These pots have been fired to normal glaze temperature then lowered quickly to the crystal growing temperatures approaching 2000 degrees.

The crystals start forming from minute particles of Zinc in the glaze over a 4-6 hour soak period.

The colors come from the addition of various colorants that are added to the glaze. Varying the time and temperature of the soak period controls the size and shape of the crystals.

Many potters consider crystalline glazes to be the most challenging of all glazes to produce. This is because they are unusually difficult and time-consuming to formulate and fire.

Crystal glazes are extremely fickle. When the glaze succeeds in capturing the luminescence of crystal formulations, it achieves a level of elegance and enchantment no other glaze can match.