Glaze made from the ash of burned wood, applied directly or formed on the pot during long wood-firings as ash settles from the flame. Each ash variety (oak, pine, rice straw, bamboo) shifts the color and surface character. Reads as warm earth-tones, deep glassy pools, the surface of a Bizen or anagama pot.
Wood ash contains 30–60% silica + 5–15% alumina + 30–60% mixed alkali / alkaline-earth fluxes (CaO, K₂O, Na₂O, MgO) — a near-complete glaze on its own. Applied wet (slurry of washed ash + water + a clay bond) or formed in the kiln during 4–10 day wood-firings as ash settles on horizontal surfaces and runs as it melts. Cone 10–12 (1280–1320 °C). Color sequence iron-driven: tan / warm orange where thin, deep brown / black where pooled, blue-green or yellow flashing in reduction zones. Each tree species produces a different chemistry — pine is silica-rich, oak is calcium-rich, rice straw is silica-and-flux-rich.
character — warm earth-tones, glassy pools, ash-run rivulets, irregular kiln-driven flashing.
Robin Hopper The Ceramic Spectrum (Krause, 2nd ed.); Daniel Rhodes Clay and Glazes for the Potter.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
A local-first library of materials, processes, applications, and finishes — equal weight, citable everywhere, so a student can move from "what is this" toward "what's actually buildable here, now, by me." Part of the renato.design ecosystem — sibling of Plenum, Specimen, Ingenue, gesture, graf, and the Renato Rhino plug-ins. Form and matter, inseparable.
Half of teaching materials is teaching how the material is made into the thing. The standard subscription library was always light on that half. The wedge here isn't better samples or a prettier interface — it's treating Process as a peer entity, not a footnote.
Conway, Lefteri, Forty, Sparke, ASM, GIA. Every voice: Voices.
Local to this browser. No telemetry.