Moss Beach Ceramics - Matt Brown (Moss) - Ceramics pics

[iannon]

i've been watching your stuff over on ETSY for a while myself. Just never took the plunge cause it seemed I could never find the the piece I was searching for exactly. Nice stuff! glad to see you here with all these tea drinkers to check out your work.

[Moss]

Iannon - thanks. Glad you found me. I sort of wonder sometimes on Etsy... People pass by, but I think this is a little bit of a niche and not everyone wants really unique work like this. I am ok with that as I do other things too to try to get the others, but to have someone admire the tea work is good. Thanks.

Chicago - Thanks on the teadust. It is a Laguna I think. Not my own sadly. Also has a nice effect if you re-fire in ^6 oxidation after soda, it turns almost solid olive green with micro-crystals. The woman at Teance asked for me to do that with the bowls they bought. Personally, I prefer the teadust. My clay supplier has his own teadust that I have been begging him to mix again, but he won't and he won't give me the recipe and won't sell me his remainder and he won't use it himself.... ARRRrrrrrghhhhh.

The slip is the same as the orange crackle cup, but the dark underneath is a HEAVY manganese stain that fluxes in reduction to soften the crackle. NOTE that the rims have the teadust down past where anyone would drink so there is no possibility of leaching and there is no Mn in the interior at all ever. I only use Mn on the outside away from the use surfaces.

The slip is smooth orange from Steve Davis at www.kazegamas.com. Where there is lighter reduction it stays white. I like that a lot. Sort of dry though which makes the part with soda a nice contrast to the touch. The body on the crackle cups has large feldspar inclusions throughout a la shigaraki clay.

Cory - Thank you! Your work is stunning and I must say that you are a master and I am only a traveler in this medium.

Can't cool in reduction due to limited fuel source. Kiln is unique so telling you how short the firing is is sort of embarrassing. Have to go full out or the tank empties.

Introducing soda as Gail Nichols except, I haven't read her book but I think she breaks the soda up, I make logs (that I have a scatological name for) that I introduce through the burner ports every 20 minutes from ^8-10 then I reduce for 1/2 hour more and ignore temperature.

Mix is 3:3:1 NaHCO3:Na2CO3:CaCO3

Going to try 1.5:1.5:3:1 NaHCO3:Na2CO3:NaCl:CaCO3 to try and get orangepeel AND orange flashing next firing or the one after that.

The heavy soda you see on some pieces is on items right next to the fire channel. Where it is not direct, you get a nice even soda on the bottom shelf and a less complete coverage on the top shelf with a lot of directionality on pieces on the edge of the shelf.

You should see some of the plates which I tumble stack. I need to get those photographed. Ah more time....

Very nice kiln and small enough to fill easily and often.

[Geekgirl]

Love the tokkure. I've been looking at those in various places for about 2 months now. Skeered to take the plunge, last thing I need is another obsession, but these bottles are verrrrry tempting. :p

[Aphroditea]

very nice work - I really like the monks cups. The rims are gorgeous! Thanks for sharing with us!!

[hooksie]

I too really like the monk cups. That as well as the soda orange crackle yunomi.

Splendid!

[Moss]

There is a story behind these, the original 5 were made for the remaining monks at the Benedictine priory where I went to school. They were all Hungarians and old then. Now they are dying off and I wanted to make the remaining monks something since I don't have any money to donate to the foundation.

The originals were only reduction fired and larger than the ones I make now. The new ones are soda and have a more variable surface.

No pictures of the originals (and no signiture - I think things like that should be anonymous so that they focus the recipient and not the maker. Probably the only humility I have...)

These are from the current batch.

[Herb_Master]

This is superb, it looks nice enough for me to want to drink wine from!

What size are these?

Do you ever make small ones, suitable for Oolong, say 80ml?

[Aphroditea]

This is superb, it looks nice enough for me to want to drink wine from!

What size are these?

Do you ever make small ones, suitable for Oolong, say 80ml?

What he said

[Moss]

They are all about 4" tall by 3" wide at the mouth. They bow slightly out in the middle like a barrel so maybe 3.25" at the widest.

They are thick walled to keep the heat so while I love them for hot drinks, I wouldn't drink wine with them I think. I like crystal for wine myself.

Going to make myself some tea and use one now that we're talking about them. :-)

[Moss]

Might be a little hard to keep the proportions. Smaller is easier to throw for me when they angle out a little more. The current cups hold about 240ml.

I can make these cups in 80ml. They are going to feel more like shot glasses though. Would people be interested in them at this size? I can do a few in the next firing.

[TIM]

Might be a little hard to keep the proportions. Smaller is easier to throw for me when they angle out a little more. The current cups hold about 240ml.

I can make these cups in 80ml. They are going to feel more like shot glasses though. Would people be interested in them at this size? I can do a few in the next firing.

Absolutely! The smaller the better. The green dust glaze is interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[Herb_Master]

Might be a little hard to keep the proportions. Smaller is easier to throw for me when they angle out a little more. The current cups hold about 240ml.

I can make these cups in 80ml. They are going to feel more like shot glasses though. Would people be interested in them at this size? I can do a few in the next firing.

Absolutely! The smaller the better. The green dust glaze is interesting. Thanks for sharing.

+1
I would buy Monk's cups at 60 to 90 ml




If wider angle is easier for small, I would buy this shape for 40 to 75 ml

done in this colour


even better if they had the same colours as your beer mugs (1st picture in your portfolio) OrangePeel exterior and pale cream interior with green tints

[Moss]

OK. I will do some, see how they go. 40-90ml, open and closed forms, soda and some in oxidation.

I can do that color. That is a shino in hard reduction with the teadust interior.

I will do a bunch of tests and post them here when done.

[Moss]

You all interested more in sets or individual pieces. I always wanted to know. I do them both ways, but recently have been doing individuals.

If I do sets, 4 is a bad number I am told. 3 or 5 good?

[Herb_Master]

I don't have a periwinkle glaze though. I will do a bunch of tests and post them here when done.

Edited my mistake, I was jumping round etsy without realizing I had changed artists