Monstera Leaf Crystalline Platter

My monstera leaf crystalline platter was hand built from high fire stoneware. I imprinted a real monstera leaf into the clay to make the impression and very carefully smoothed it out before putting it into the kiln to dry for the bisque firing (It’s extremely fragile before it’s fired because of the size and holes and others broke before they were fired) After the bisque firing, I applied 3 coats of one of my crystalline glazes and fired it again. Crystalline glazes aren’t food safe, so this piece is for decorative purposes. You could place whole fruit on it though, if you so desire. The surface of the platter is perfect, but there is some pinholing on the outer edge.

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! I make every crystalline glaze in the studio right before every glaze firing, as the glazes don’t ‘keep’ well. The components need to be measured precisely to the fraction of a gram and applied carefully in numerous, thick coats. 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, two-dimensional 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.