Making a Glaze

Creating a glaze involves a several step process beginning with the basic raw materials and ending with a refined glaze product to be applied to the pottery pieces.

Making a straw ash glaze (navy bean, sunflower, flax, soybean) begins with the collection of dried organic material from a particular plant which is then burned.

After the burning, the ashes are collected and stored. Similarly, the wood ash (elm, poplar) used to make the glazes are collected after being burned in Richard's home boiler which heats his home. This wood is collected from Richard Bresnahan's own land, and the straw is gathered from Bresnahan family farms in North Dakota.

Refining the ashes to create a more pure glaze includes many cycles of washing, sifting and drying.

To begin, a large 44 gallon trash bucket is filled half full with raw ash material and half with water and mixed. It is then filtered using a fine mesh screen into a separate bucket where the ash is left to settle at the bottom of the bucket. The remaining water is then drained off, as it contains a high amount of alkoli from the ashes, and new water is added to further the washing of the ash.

After mixing the ash with the fresh water for the second time it is again filtered into a final bucket using a smaller mesh screen to remove any further impure particles.

After the ash has been allowed to settle a final time the water is poured off and the remaining ash is collected and set out to dry.

This process is done repeatedly until all the ash in the original bucket has been filtered. The ash is then considered 'pure' and ready to be used in a glaze.

It takes approximately two weeks to complete a full ash washing cycle. The dried ashes are often stored until they are mixing the glaze which consists of the dry ash, water, refined clay and feldspar (dried mineral substance).