Cobalt Glory Crystalline Vase

My ‘Cobalt Glory Crystalline Vase’ was wheel thrown from high-fire stoneware. Its lustrous surface was created using a crystalline glaze that I prepare from scratch in my studio.

There are many steps to making crystalline glazed ceramics so it is incredibly time consuming, but I hope you’ll agree that the results are worth the effort! Every piece has a single-use, hand built ‘riser’ and ‘glaze catcher’ dish made to fit it perfectly for the glaze firing. This is necessary as the high gloss crystals need a glaze that flows a lot to develop, and all that flowing glaze has to go somewhere. After the glaze firing, the pieces are removed from the risers and catchers by a number of methods and then the razor edged base needs to be sanded, using 5 different grit sanders until it’s baby-bottom smooth. My crystalline pieces are glaze fired to 1300 degrees celcius over 16.5 hours. They are dishwasher safe, but I recommend to hand wash them to preserve their beauty.