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When I recently asked Ivar Mackay how he had achieved a particular effect on a lovely little bowl he said, "I dun’no, I just stuck my brush out as it was going round". A typical ‘fender’ of an Ivar reply. Of course he had spent the evening before, as he does almost every evening, sitting in the pottery at his bench with just the light of a desk lamp to illuminate his open kiln book, thinking.

Ivar thinks a lot about making, mostly at night. He is usually not alone. Our workshop cats are silent company. A glass of wine is within reach and there is music playing out of the darkness while he works out his ideas on paper. Frequently in the morning when I go through to the pottery I find doodles all over empty envelopes and paper bags.

People have often asked Ivar why with his natural ability for throwing and he chose to spend so many years producing flowerpots. He says that had he tried to work in porcelain earlier he would not have been able to. The garden pots gave him mileage and clay control. A lifetime of reading, listening to music, observing nature, working in other media and a deep enthusiasm for painting fuelled his imagination for glaze play.

This will be Ivar’s ninth year of making in porcelain. In this time an impressive number of difficult forms and glaze variants have spilled out of him at an apparently unstoppable rate. There is a kind of urgency about the way he works. I know of many practising craftspeople who have found a place of comfort in their making and have never strayed beyond it. For Ivar, this is stultification. Although never bored with throwing pots, he needs to be reaching for the next big challenge.

Ivar has been on a lifetime’s quest to make the perfect bowl. When he goes away fishing for a week, he comes back rusty and has to throw lots of bowls to get his hand in again. When he wants to make a large and difficult piece he throws small bowls first. When he was asked by a journalist, "What was the best piece he had ever made?" he replied "Until you open the kiln everything is perfect. I don't get excited as I know there will be high wastage, but I have to get on with it, otherwise I would have given up long ago. If I didn't think the next one was going to be better I might as well stop".

Throwing is like a meditation for him. It is a central, stabilising force in his life. He would be lost without it. Never satisfied, he moves on, always looking to refine shape, to glaze a better way, to bring out a richer colour or a subtler undertone – his work is a constant process of evolution, and his attitude to failure is almost martial.

Because he takes risks and is constantly experimenting, on average 80% of Ivar’s pieces end up in the waste bin. Translucent materials are unforgiving and impurities a bane! Far less robust in its raw state than other clay bodies, porcelain is thixotropic on the wheel, short when it is drying, pyroplastic in the kiln, unwilling to engage with its glaze, and pieces must be ‘well-engineered’ to stand a chance of making it past biscuit.

Reduction glazes, particularly copper red, fail on average 70% of the time, and top quality copper reds account for as little as 10% of output. Ivar’s reds desert him for long periods of time, with his best colours occurring during winter months. Copper red seems to like wet conditions and low atmospheric pressure, however the factors that affect the quality of reduction are myriad and inter-related, and these account for a high level of wastage.

Microns of change in glaze thickness, a pot’s placement within the kiln, it’s shape in relation to the shape of neighbouring pots, the condition and origin of the raw oxide that colours its glaze (a new source for a previously tried and tested oxide supply can produce a radically different outcome), firing-to-firing temperature and climb variations, the point and duration of reduction within the firing cycle, the condition of the weather on the day of the firing etc. – These are all major contributors to the unpredictability of reduction glazes.

Ivar blends and pugs his own recipe of high grade French Limoges porcelain body with English Audrey Blackman. He wheel throws in small batches, racks the pots to allow them to harden off and then turns them to achieve the, at times, gravity-defying shapes and the high degree of refinement his work is noted for.

Once pots are bone dry they are biscuit fired to 1000c. Glaze is then applied in a variety of ways, including spraying, dipping, pouring, slip trailing and splashing, before the pieces are returned to the kiln.

Ivar’s kiln is fired on propane gas and is box form and bag walled with two firing chambers. It is insulated with brick and ceramic fibre. Firings last around 12 hours with the temperature rising to just under 1300c and reduction occurring on the climb.

Nigel Woods’ book on Chinese Glazes has been an important reference book for Ivar, and many of his glazes have begun with his study of images and recipes he has found within it. However, nothing is straightforward with reduction firing, and following recipes does not necessarily lead to anticipated results or even any form of result! This and other sources of reference have been a starting point for Ivar Mackay’s glaze development - his most notable effects have resulted from his ability to think laterally, and an on-going process of experimentation.

fsw / January 2007