justifies the slight loss in translucency and the
slight increase in colour.

MAKING A PORCELAIN BODY: THEORETICAL MEANS

There is no way to make one beautiful glaze or clay
body by purely theoretical means. Whichever method
we use, it can only, at best, tell us where to look.
The exact quality of beauty evades analysis and
calculation, and is too subjective to show on a
slide-rule. In the end, all methods are empirical

(experiment and observation) and this is a personal
choice.

At the same time, to reject any useful tool (such

as glaze calculation) because it is too limiting for
an artist is to cut the nose and remain faceless.

The tools may be extensions of human consciousness,

or they may be amputations - the choice is ours, not
theirs. A knife, as a tool, is indifferent to whether
it is used to cut Madeira cake or the throat of an
enemy. The knife does not care, nor can it take over
the soul of its operator.

In making porcelain, the theoretical means are useful,
but only to the extent of establishing one or more
places to begin the process af experimentation and
observation:

Consider these five analyses:

Silica Alumina Fluxes & Iron
(a) 78.19 16.24 5.57
(b) 77.0 18.3 4.7
(c) 70.3 23.36 6.34
(d) 67.19 26.54 6.27
(e) 65.62 28. 36 6.02

The first is super-porcelain, the analysis of a Chinese
Ying Ch'ing eggshell porcelain, highly translucent.

The second, (b), is a Japanese commercial porcelain,
very hard and highly translucent, but less likely to
distort than (a). ({c), (d) and (e) are three por-
celains which I have used in England made from

English materials.

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