About

Technical Studies: Glaze is a course offered in the ceramics department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the spring semester. This course explores glaze materials, the geology of ceramic materials, ceramic chemistry, glaze and clay body formulation, glaze colors, the role of heat, firing atmospheres, and glaze characteristics, behaviors, and defects. Students become familiar with the spectrum of raw ceramic materials through weekly lectures and discussions, as well as numerous experimental glaze material tests, data recording, and analysis.

Each spring semester, students begin by working with a basic clear glaze recipe consisting of 40% feldspar, 30% silica, 20% calcium carbonate, and 10% clay. They experiment with different feldspars, fluxes, and clays, adding one or more fluxes and various opacifiers and colorants. All the recipes on this website were created individually by the students enrolled in this course and were formulated for Cone 6 firing.

If you have any questions, please contact me, Mie Kongo (instructor) at mkongo@saic.edu, or ceramics department technicians, Bowie Croissant at bcroisant@artic.edu.