[Clayart] two shinos/ some history.

[mel jacobson]

as always, hank gives us some very good information.
he is a double well done smarty pants.

there are two shinos...japanese and american.  (over simplification)

typical japanese shino is always pure white and heavy sagging
holes and usually thick.  it was a teabowl favorite for
many years. as hank says...it is a very simple glaze.
not much flux...just feldspar. (or variations.) it was considered
the first pure white glaze.

to most westerners it is a strange and ugly glaze.
looks like cookie frosting.

american shino that was named here on clayart, always has
a great deal of soda ash.  makes black.
in fact, years back we did analysis on about 30 shino glazes..(tom buck with a pencil, and i gave
him a hundred bucks..).they
are basically the same glaze.  small variations with lots of names.
like...`bob's shino, gloria's pink shino` and so on for about 30 glazes.
they all come out the same...except the percentage of soda ash and maybe
iron ox or some other oxide and of course firing variations..

ginny wirt, an  mfa student at the u of minn, made the first attempts, that
was stolen from her and it became `Minnesota, warren shino`...malcolm davis loved
ginny and told her story often.

she quit the U in anger and went to stanford and got her degree in architecture.
wise move.  a marvelous lady.  i interviewed her in my living room...got all her
original dated recipes and we published it in CM.

like hank, i have read volumes on japanese shino, even went up to arakawa's studio
and visited with shino makers.  (a wonderful arakawa teabowl `chawan` was sent to amoca.)
i know it was one of the last pots packed...i hung on tight to the end. it was signed too.

so, all that soda ash, table salt, makes for adventure...and well worth it.
we all miss malcolm davis....and esp me...we worked together on some great writing
about his work.  he was a gem.  he lost his great shino just before he died.
it got him in the end...but he honored us all with his great pots with big black
images.  i was more than sure that he painted hot soda ash on his pots with a big brush.
he would never admit it...good for him.
mel

website: www.melpots.com