Ceramic Cubes

This year we have added a new and exciting specially-made collection of ceramics cubes to the Materials Library. We wanted a collection of objects that systematically explored the variety of commercially available clay materials out there, and that could be used by visitors as a sort of visual dictionary to guide them through these different types of clay bodies and the ‘appropriate’ manufacturing, firing and glazing techniques to use with them. To do this we enlisted the help of clay, ceramics and glaze specialists Darren Ellis and Sara Brouwer.

Darren and Sara set about making fifty ceramic cubes, all with the same dimensions, from London clay and an array of commercially available clay bodies such as red earthenware terracotta, black clay, white grog stoneware, and special porcelain. Small ‘cup handle’ samples were made to compare the plasticity or shortness of primary and secondary clays, as well as cubes that showed the different forms achieved using making techniques such as pinching, throwing, coiling, slab building and slip casting. The 50mm clay cubes were then glazed on one face and fired to different temperatures in either oxidising or reducing environments, creating a wide palette of different colours, textures and material properties, with different amounts of shrinkage depending on the clay used. This partial ceramics encyclopedia also deliberately shows the sometimes spectacular ‘mistakes’ that occur when clay body and glaze are mistreated and over- or under-fired, resulting in pin-holing, bloating, crazing and more.­­