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The name Majolica (pronounce with the ‘j’ as in ‘jolly’) is thought to come from the medieval Italian word for Majorca, an island on the route for ships bringing Hispano-Moresque wares from Valencia to Italy. An alternative explanation of the name is that it comes from the Spanish term obra de Malaga, denoting “imported wares from Malaga”. During the Renaissance, the term maiolica came to be used when describing ceramics made in Italy, lustered or not, of tin-glazed earthenware. Tin glaze gave makers a brilliant white, opaque surface for painting. The unfired glaze absorbs the metallic oxide colours like fresco, making errors impossible to fix. The resulting ceramics preserved the brilliant colors of the Renaissance in a way that paintings cannot.
Delftware refers historically to the blue and white pottery made in and around Delft in the Netherlands in the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. It also refers to contemporary pottery made (in the Netherlands) in the style of this tin-glazed pottery tradition.
Some of my tiles require that I work the image into the soft clay (for engravings and embossing). I like the slightly organic feel of handmade tiles, I find they are well suited to the images painted onto them. They do however add significantly to the cost of the work, adding the working of the clay and an extra firing.
I also use dust-pressed industrially produced bisque tiles where I need the tiles to be uniform. This is also a good idea when making feature tiles that are to be included in a tiled wall space. The painted tiles can be matched and combined easily with plain glazed tiles.
The tiles have been fired to earthenware temperatures (1080 degrees Celsius). Most of my tiles are fired twice, some up to four times as I apply layers of the image through glazing and oxides. This means that vitrification of the clay has taken place; it has been transformed into ceramic. Ceramic is stable, resistant to further change through heat (up to their firing temperature of 1080 degrees), light, cold, damp - any of the elements that wreak damage on paper or canvas portraits. Remember that ceramics have been unearthed from shipwrecks and burial sites, undamaged after hundreds of years.
Earthenware is porous, that is, water will be drawn between the molecules. When earthenware is glazed, (for example using the white tin glazes), a glass layer is formed on the tile, making the surfaces waterproof. When used in a damp area, such as tiled into a splashback, care should be taken to grout between the tiles with a waterproof grouting which will not allow water between and behind the tiles.
These earthenware tiles have not been tested for frost damage as they are primarily intended for indoor conditions. Tiles are damaged by frost when they absorb water which then freezes, forcing the ceramic molecules apart. This can be prevented by reducing the absorbtion of water through applying glazes, which are impermeable to water. Ceramics intended for outdoors can be protected through the application of silicone which fills the spaces between the molecules without changing the surface or colour.
Few pigments withstand the high temperatures of the kiln. Metal oxides are the primary colorants used in the making of ceramic glazes. I use combinations of oxides of cobalt(blues), iron(reds, blacks), copper(greens), manganese(browns), vanadium(yellow), nickel and cobalt and copper carbonates. Tin oxide is used to make the glaze opaque and white. The oxides are ground to a very fine powder, and mixed with water, sometimes ball clay and sometimes gum Arabic.
Bisque is the first firing of the clay which transforms it into ceramic. This provides a stable, porous surface for application of glaze and drawing.
There is plenty of information available about this beautiful ceramic tradition. Books that I recommend to start with are:
Carnegie , Daphne. Tin Glazed Earthenware. (Oxford Press, 1993).
Caiger-Smith, Alan, Tin-Glaze Pottery in Europe and the Islamic World: The Tradition of 1000 Years in Maiolica, Faience and Delftware (Faber and Faber, 1973)
Majolica group – Yahoo - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/maiolica/
Scottish Potters Association
http://www.scottishpotters.co.uk/
Craft Scotland
http://www.craftscotland.org/
Ayrshire Makers http://www.ayrshiremakers.org.uk/
UK Potters http://www.ukpotters.co.uk/
Please contact me for professional framing options
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