I found a rusting, flat piece of metal on the street a couple months ago, and thought it’d look great on a ceramic piece. Because I wanted a large, flat area to display the metal, I built this vase out of rolled-out clay slabs. On newspaper, I sketched out a design, folded it in half and cut it out, paper doll style, so the design would be the same on both sides. I had to remember to allow for about 10 to 15% clay shrinkage during the kiln firings. After laying the cut-out newspaper design on the flattened clay, I cut the design out, and put the clay pieces together one by one. Here’s the final piece before the first bisque firing.
The glaze is one dip in “copper blush” (which normally looks like shiny copper) and then a second dip in clear. This combo turns out to be a really cool ancient-looking glaze color that I thought would combine nicely with the rusty metal.
The metal is glued on to the vase, AFTER the final firing, with super-glue.
I absolutely love how this turned out! And now I’m on the hunt for more rust, so I can work more with earth and metal:)
Rachel Imsland, Artist 
3 thoughts on “earth and metal 4.20.2016”