- Tutor: Elaine Harrington
- Duration: 2 days
- Cost: 120
Accommodation in McKenna's (if required) 25 euros per night
This 2-day intensive masterclass covers everything you need to know to make your own glazes. Starting from the ground up, we’ll learn about raw materials, glaze chemistry and understanding glaze formulas. With expert guidance, technical information and practical examples, participants will learn how to mix and test glazes, understand colour and surface quality, learn different glazing application methods and how heat, temperature and firing affect glaze outcomes.
This is a hands-on studio workshop, where discussion and ideas-sharing are encouraged, and participants are invited to bring samples of previous glaze work for problem-solving.
The workshop will cover: understanding raw materials, the glaze spectrum: slips, engobes, underglazes, glazes, glaze chemistry and formulas, surface, shine and opacity, colour in glazes: oxides, stains, opacifiers, firing atmosphere, making and mixing glazes, testing techniques, test-tiles, line and triaxial blends, glaze application and layering, heat, temperature and firing affects on glazes, troubleshooting: glaze flaws and fixes, health and safety.
Outcomes: Participants will leave the course understanding glaze theory and materials, with the knowledge to begin making glazes in their own studios. Test-tiles and works glazed during the workshop can be fired after the workshop and available for collection at a later date, or taken home at the end of the workshop unfired.
Skill Level: Intermediate - all experience levels are welcome, but the workshop covers technical information so participants would benefit from having a working knowledge of ceramics practice.
Health and Safety: All participants will need: FFP3 disposable particulate respirator or P3 particulate filters for half-face mask, an apron and safety glasses.
Elaine Harrington is an artist, researcher and educator. Her practice investigates ecology of making in art & craft practices, using found & natural raw materials to explore ideas of embodied landscape and objects as materials & cultural documents.
She was the 2018-20 Parity Studios Artist-in-Residence at UCD College of Science (IRL), exploring geoscience and the transformation of earth materials in ceramics, and ecology of making in material practice. Other residencies include Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Centre (DK), and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (IRL), and art & ecology research residencies include the Cabin residency at Road Book’s Garravagh Eco-Project (IRL), Scottish Sculpture Workshop’s Nightshift residency (UK), and Cow House Studios (IRL, upcoming). Ongoing research explores the mining & mineral heritage of Ireland, investigating mine tailings, waste and byproducts from excavation & extraction industries for use in ceramics processes; and native pigments and biocolour for ceramics and printmaking, supported by Arts Council Ireland.
She has worked on numerous collaborative art, education & public engagement projects and STEAM learning initiatives, and is a member of the Arts Council's Visual Arts Peer Panel, and Design & Crafts Council Ireland’s Education and Peer Mentor Panels. Recent projects include an archaeological and contemporary ceramics skills-sharing and research initiative with UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology & Material Research (CEAMC) supported by Creative Ireland, and a collaborative geoscience engagement through art project developed with the Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG), supported by UCD Seed Funding Scheme. She is currently co-developing an interdisciplinary art, music & geology project exploring deep time, place-making & myths of landscape, with composer & electric guitarist Barry O’Halpin, the research phase of which was supported by a Visual Arts Bursary 2020 from the Arts Council and iCRAG, which will culminate in a series of collaborative, site-responsive works for public performance in 2022-24.
Elaine is a graduate of Design & Crafts Council Ireland’s Ceramics Skills & Design Course, and holds an MA in Ceramics from Cardiff School of Art & Design and an MSc in Interactive Digital Media from Trinity College Dublin. Her work has been shortlisted for the International KOGEI Award in Toyama (JP) 2020 and RDS Craft Awards 2017 & 2020, was awarded a DCCI FutureMakers Award 2019 and An Táin Arts Centre’s Emerging Artist Solo Exhibition 2019, and is currently selected for DCCI’s PORTFOLIO 2021-2022. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in Sculpture in Context 2019, Unfolding at DLR LexIcon Municipal Gallery 2020, the International KOGEI Award in Toyama Exhibition at the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art & Design (JP) 2021, and the Pigments Revealed Symposium Exhibition (USA, online) 2021. She has received support from the Arts Council of Ireland, Creative Europe MEDIA, Creative Ireland, Per Cent for Art Scheme, Design & Crafts Council Ireland, and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Louth and Cork County Councils. She is currently commissioned for the Reimagining Enniscorthy public art & community engagement decarbonisation project 2022/23, supported by Wexford County Council & Creative Ireland.
