Two Surfaces
Carbon trap Shino is not a predictable glaze. That's the point — and, of course, the problem.
The glaze is simple: a traditional Shino recipe, heavy on feldspar and porous enough to trap carbon from the kiln atmosphere beneath the surface before it burns off. The exterior looks like something that spent time underground—mossy, muted, slightly dark. The interior fires clean, showing the Shino most people recognize: cream, peach, orange-amber, thickening near the base.
Two surfaces. One firing. Neither one can be controlled.
These are the first of my newest forms I've shown. The shapes have been in development for months: tall conical vases and small angular cups. They are designed, tested, and measured. The geometry is deliberate, but the glaze is the opposite.
On the tall vases, the carbon broke unevenly. One showed a diagonal pull of orange across the shoulder, the Shino burning through where the carbon couldn't hold. Another turned almost entirely green, the exterior closer to stone than clay. The cups came out quieter with rusty cream interiors and peach near the foot ring, where the clay and glaze are dense.
None of them match. That's not romantic. That's just how the materials work.
The tension I keep returning to is that these forms are precisely designed and repeatable. This glaze makes the repetition irrelevant. Same form, different kiln load, different carbon atmosphere, different result. The form continues. This specific surface does not.
That's not something I planned. It showed up.
These pieces will drop before Mother's Day: a few tall vases and a small run of cups. Email subscribers get first access the day before they go live in the shop. When they're gone, they're gone. Any other kiln or atmosphere would produce different results. The Shino does not repeat.
New Earth Ceramics makes stoneware objects in Los Angeles. The line is available for wholesale inquiry. DTC releases are announced via email.
P.S. — Not everything traps.
Some of the cups came out another way — the carbon burned off, and what's left is pure Shino. Cream, rust, and warm amber that verge on metallic.
They're part of the same drop. Same forms, same glaze — just a different result.