Glass and Ceramics

Glass can be used with ceramics for an added decorative touch. It creates a great effect and is a lot of fun to experiment with. Lots of potters have been using glass with clay for many years.

In essence - glaze is like a glass. As the glaze on a pot heats up to peak temperatures - it becomes a very viscous form of glass like a liquid that fuses  to a clay body and coats the pot like glass. Some glazes are shiny and some are matt. All of that gets determined in the composition of the glaze. The main ingredient in a glaze is usually silica (SiO2) which, with the help of other chemicals, can be made to melt to a viscous (sticky) state.

Since the fired glass has little tiny cracks in it - it is really not food safe.  I make mostly functional pottery so there isn't a great deal of opportunity for me to use glass as a decorative addition, however I have found a great place in one of my signature pots for some glass.

Bridges Pottery Honeycomb Bowl

Bridges Pottery Honeycomb Bowl

 There is a lot of great information on the web about using glass. One place I found to have some good straight forward information is  "Lakeside Pottery Ceramic School and Studio"   They have a page dedicated to Glass.