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Eric Ordway | Episode 952

Eric Ordway is a potter and teacher currently living and working in Columbia, MO. Eric makes wheel-thrown and altered pots that are finished in high, atmospheric kilns. Eric’s work is influenced by his blue-collar roots, his interest in spirituality, and fantasy. Eric recently was nominated as a 2023 Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly.

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I saw on your Instagram that you drew up a key for your glaze tests. Is it important when you are testing that you draw a key up to explain what it was you did?

Well in that instance Paul, it was because I had recently become a studio manager at a local not for profit clay community center. The thing of it is was that I knew what everything on those test tiles meant but I realized very quickly that other people that were being introduced to ceramics didn’t know how to read these. And so that little drawing was my way of  show casing this information to individuals.

Is it more helpful to have texture on test tiles along with smooth surface and is it better to be erect as oppose to flat?

I would say yes. The more information you get from a test tile the better the test tile is. So personally, because I fire in atmospheric  kilns, I want to see how a test tile or glaze has potential for pooling on that test tile. And so those grooves on it really kind of helps showcase how a glaze interacts with a depth or cut into the clay. Which is really important in my work. I have seen test tiles that are fired flat and that is actually one of my biggest pet peeves because when a glaze sits on a flat surface it interacts with that surface in a much different way and you don’t actually get a read of the flow of a glaze when a test tile is erect or standing vertically. Then I actually read how much that glaze is going to travel or move on a test tile and be able to make an adjustment from there.

On test tiles is it important to have a catch basin below it when you are testing new glazes?

You know at this point in my career I don’t think so. I think when people are first starting though it’s not a bad idea. Or if you own your own kiln that is a choice you can make. But for a lot of individuals they are firing in community kilns and so you have to be very protective about those shelves in a community setting because that is a 75 dollar investment for that clay studio.

On a shelf, do you recommend a kiln wash?

Absolutely kiln wash. Every kiln I fire has kiln wash on it. But then again a lot of my work I fire with either stilts or with wading. So the actual clay body itself it lifted from the kiln shelf by a quarter of an inch. And so the interaction there is much different if a piece sits flat onto a kiln wash, which creates a very different effect.

What kind of paper trail or electronics are you actually using to record your information to be able to go back and know what you did?

I am a big fan of leaving space to write the information on the test tile itself. Because we have all been at  a place where we have our test tiles and we have to search and find the notebook or the Word file that  we inputted it in. And thinking about a community setting if the information is on the test tile itself people can just pick it up and flip it over and read the information and that makes it a lot easier and a lot more accessible for a lot of folks.

I noticed a dog on your Instagram feed. What’s your dog’s name and what is your favorite thing to do with your dog?

That’s Lily and she is an English Pointer. She is three years old, she is the delight of me and my wife’s life. One of my favorite things about Lily is taking her to the dog part and she’s a bird dog so she is a sight hound so her instinct is to track things as they are flying through the air and kind of like chase after them, which can be very nerve racking because if she gets distracted and she doesn’t listen she can get going really fast. But it is just a pure delight to see her run and jump through tall grasses, chasing butterflies at the dog park. It’s just a real sense of joy.

Book

The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson 

Contact

ericordway.com

Instagram: @ericordway