Ceramics can be fused, coated, or plugged with glass for an artistic affect.
Both clay and glass come from a combination of sediment, either clay or sand respectively, which are then heated at a high enough temperature that either substance fuses into a hard shell. Glass has been combined with clay at least 6,000 years ago, since the Egyptians rubbed sand from the Nile River on their figurines and then heated the figurines until the coating became cool and hard to the touch. The Phoenicians, too, combined glass and clay by using clay to create a shape or core and then stringing molten glass around the clay to create bottles.
Instructions
1. Wedge the clay to remove air bubbles and pockets of air and to warm up it up. Wedging is done by holding the clay in both hands and rolling and pressing the clay into a hard surface or tabletop similar to the way dough is kneaded.
2. Shape your clay into either a vessel or a platter using your hands or a pottery wheel. For platters, glass chips will need to be embedded in the clay in a later step, whereas glass chips can be placed in the bottom of vessels (like bowls or crocks) and allowed to melt without causing damage to your kiln from molten glass run-off.
3. Wrap pottery in a plastic sheet and allow clay to dry until leather hard.
4. Glaze your vessel or platter. According to Lindsey Tomlinson-Peck of The Mudroom Pottery Studio, "You should only fuse or melt glass in a clay pot that has been glazed because glass and clay can fire at different temperatures and you don't want your pot to crack or the glass to leak and possibly damage your kiln or any other pots you might be firing."
5. Decide where you want the glass to appear in the pottery. Bear in mind that glass will melt similarly to an ice cube in that it will not simply cover the area of the glass chip, but it will spread out as it melts and coat more of the surface of your pottery than just the chip area.
6. Place the glass chips where you want them using one of two methods. Either lay the glass chips in the bottom of a vessel where it will melt and spread, pooling into the bottom of the pot as it is fired, or scrape off the glaze using a wooden craft stick only underneath the area in which a glass chip will be placed or embedded whether on a vessel or a platter.
7. Fire your pots to Cone 6 (2,223 degrees Fahrenheit) in an electric kiln and remove pots when cooled.
