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This two-inch stack of clay body and glaze mix tickets represents only about half of my testing over the past year. Along the way, I also added thousands of photos to my Insight-live.com account. Looking at this pile, I realized why I am testing more: Organized records make it easier to keep multiple projects moving. I can see what I have tried, compare results and pick up where I left off. Each test builds on earlier work, and that visible progress motivates me to keep going. If you want to do DIY glazes and bodies, this is the secret is good record-keeping.

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Consider how valuable your glaze and body development records are. Are they in a three-ring binder? Or do you have pictures and notes scattered across apps on your phone? If you're testing, adjusting, or developing glazes, bodies, underglazes or engobes, traditional notebooks and binders are holding you back. They don't have keywords, and they are only grouped, not categorized. With Insight-live, you can link recipes to each other and to important details like photos, materials, firing schedules and URLs. Organize test recipes into projects, classify them with typecodes (tokens), calculate chemistry, and create mix tickets. Research materials and perform keyword searches. Put anything side-by-side to study and determine the next move. Physical notebooks can’t do this—but your account at Insight-live.com can!

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A promising test is frustratingly difficult to repeat if you cannot identify how you made it. A code number on each specimen links it to its recipe, firing schedule, pictures and notes—and to earlier and later versions in the same project. These mugs and the test bar are made from the same experimental material (called “Battle Clay”). Their code connects them to the records for that test mix. Pretty much everything I have ever made has been a test, and thus has code numbers on the bottoms. I can pick up a 40-year old specimen and find its history, or open the record and locate the matching pieces (in my Insight-live.com account).
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Setting up a Clay Testing Program in Your Company or Studio
Set up a routine testing pipeline and start generating historical data that will enable your staff to understand your source materials and maintain, adjust and troubleshoot your clay body recipes. |
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