Trendy Tuesday: Face Jug Hot From The Kiln

Hot from The Kiln

This is a face jug I had made and fired in a salt kiln. The salt kiln is not easy for me to access, so I usually call them limited editions. So, here is a limited edition face jug. *grin*

It’s not quite as hideously scary as some face jugs, but that’s ok. I'm not attempting to become a folk potter. Instead I take the folk tradition and give it my own interpretation with leanings toward Steampunk, punk and industrial influences. You can really see that with the eye piercing and the handle machine like rivets made of clay.

The area I could improve upon with this jug is mainly in the size. It stands about 8.5 inches high and 5 inches wide.  It holds about 6 cups (or a quart and a half) of liquid. Just a little larger and I could have had a true half gallon jug.

Additionally, the glaze has some pitting, and the white areas of the face were supposed to have been more bright pale yellow. Since the jug shows it had a decent amount of salting, I'm assuming the issue had to have been the heat. Maybe it had heated too quickly, or maybe it had never gotten hot enough for the yellow salt glaze to become yellow. Maybe the corner of the kiln in which this jug sat didn’t hold the heat as well.  Since the salt kiln is pretty dilapidated, I'm not sure I have any control over the heating issues. If I owned it, I could experiment more. At any rate, the pitting in the glaze is often common in folk pottery, so I'm not upset with it.