Stephanie Jonsson

This past Friday, the Visual Arts department at the Banff Centre had an open house. It was a great success. I received a lot of positive feedback on my work, and some important feedback about things I’d been waffling on that were happening (accidental glaze peeling, placing smaller fabric pods on the tops of the blue piece, etc). I also got the chance to see what all my colleagues here have been working on and their experiences here translated through their individual and collective practices.

I have been so busy with making my work and preparing for my exhibition that I haven’t posted any images in quite some time. However busy, I still managed to snap a few photos. I thought I would post some images showing my progress up to date – two entirely completed sculptures and three that are very close to being finished.

First the pieces have to be dried, then they go into the kiln for the first firing. The first firing is called the bisque firing, and it is done at a very low temperature. Here are my pieces in the kiln for the bisque firing (some of them are upside down so I could save space in the kiln):

The next step is applying the glaze. Below shows a photo of a glaze after it is mixed up and before it is applied:

Glazing involves weighing dry chemicals to a very precise weight (to a tenth of a gram), adding a specific volume of water, then combining them and putting them through a sieve. A glaze is basically a combination of chemicals that form a glass at a specific temperature. The glaze shown above is fired to Cone 6, which is about 2246°F (or 1230° C).

The white pieces waiting to be glazed in the glaze room.