Historical artifacts

[offcntr]

Got a nice email recently from Longview, WA, from a woman who attended the University of Oregon, oh two decades ago. Eva sent me a picture of one of her treasures from those days.

It's an incense dragon, and it's an old one. Copper red head over a temmoku body, and that's the Craft Center glaze from a Craft Center firing.

The big gas kiln at Club Mud holds heat much longer than the kiln at the EMU, so iron glazes tend not to have much black. Iron crystallizes during a long, slow cool-down, so a brown/black iron glaze, like a temmoku, comes out mostly brown, instead of black breaking brown on the edges. So this little feller dates back to sometime before 1998, when I moved over to Club Mud.

She says it's been years since she's been in a place where she could burn incense--smoke alarms are everywhere--but still likes his friendly presence in her space. It lives in the bathroom these days, next to a battery-powered candle (again, because smoke alarm). Seems it now has a new function.

I have a lot of people--who apparently can't read signage--ask if the nose-breathing dragons are tooth brush holders. Good to know that the mouthies can also take up the challenge.