Book Review

THE CERAMIC SPECTRUII:; A Simplified Approach to Glaze

and Color Development is a fine book that deals fully
with pottery glazes and the ways to make and use them.

The book starts at the beginning -- history and types

of pottery -- and advances into varied and interesting
methods of achieving glaze colors amd textures. The scope
and depth of the book exceeds any other book on the
subject.

Robin Hopper declares a new era of glazemaking
when he says "The materials that go into a glaze (mainly
the fluxes) also control the way that colorants behave,
and the way that the wide range of surface potential
develops which makes up the ceramic spectrum." This
turns around accepted thinking about glaze color.

Instead of just adding oxides to color a glaze that is
otherwise unchanged, he varies the glaze to achieve a
variety of responses to added oxides. This gives a rich
spectrum of color hue and surface texture.

Robin Hopper's simplified approach to glaze is easy
to use. More important, it gives few failures and many
interesting, satisfying results. The method is applied
to both oxidation and reduction glazes in the complete
range of ceramic temperatures, from enamels to porcelain.

In setting out to explore this wice range of tech-
niques and technical information, Robin Hopper never
allows himself to become bogged down in technical jargon.
He believes that most potters "are totally intimidated by
the alien chemical/mathematical methods" of other systems
for glaze making. He does not use chemical jargon or
maths beyond adding to a hundred. This is an accomplish-
ment that will be appreciated by all who read the book.

The writing style of the book is moderately difficult.
By one standard scale it is grade-thirteen reading level.
This will be a drawback for some, but one that is probably
easier to overcome than the chemical/mathematical problem
of the other books on glazes.

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