Krol Arts, pottery by Igor Krol

The recent pots: crystalline glazes on thrown stoneware and different clays. Tap any piece to look closely at the glaze.

Crystalline Glaze

Zinc-silicate crystals seeded in the glaze and grown during a long, slow cool. Each bloom opens in the kiln, and no two firings leave the same mark.

A rounded stoneware vase with a flared rim, pale beige ground scattered with slate-blue crystal blooms

My Beauty

Stoneware · Blue crystalline over a pale beige ground · 21 × 17 cm

My Beauty

Stoneware · Blue crystalline over a pale beige ground · 21 × 17 cm

Called My Beauty because it is very cute. The ground colours are lighter than usual, because I used a lighter stoneware for this one.

A tall baluster vase with a flared rim, amber ground with cobalt-blue crystalline runs down the body

Tall One

Stoneware · Cobalt crystalline over amber · 35 × 18 cm

Tall One

Stoneware · Cobalt crystalline over amber · 35 × 18 cm

A fascinating imbalance in the crystal concentration. One side is an overwhelming burst of blue, the other is calm, almost absent of them.

A round amber-brown stoneware vase with a short dark collar, blue crystal blooms gathered near the shoulder

Round One

Stoneware · Cobalt crystalline over amber · 19 × 18 cm

Round One

Stoneware · Cobalt crystalline over amber · 19 × 18 cm

A round form with stick crystals, evenly spread. Beautiful browns and beige.

A round stoneware vase, ochre ground densely covered with bright light-blue crystal blooms

Round Two

Stoneware · Dense blue crystalline over ochre · 19 × 19 cm

Round Two

Stoneware · Dense blue crystalline over ochre · 19 × 19 cm

A round form with bursts of grouped crystal formations. Beautiful browns and beige.

A round amber stoneware vase with a short flared neck, medium-blue crystal blooms scattered evenly over the body

Round Three

Stoneware · Blue crystalline over amber · 18 × 18 cm

Round Three

Stoneware · Blue crystalline over amber · 18 × 18 cm

A round form with even larger groups of crystal formations. Beautiful browns and beige.

A squat round stoneware bowl, amber-and-blue crystalline outside with a glossy green interior

Spludge

Stoneware · Blue-and-amber crystalline, green pooled within · 15 × 18 cm

Spludge

Stoneware · Blue-and-amber crystalline, green pooled within · 15 × 18 cm

Green crystalline glaze inside and my brownish blue crystalline outside, bringing my two crystalline experiments together on one pot. I left a good deal of the turning marks to show the texture, and the brown varies across them.

A small squat stoneware bowl, amber-beige glaze scattered with blue crystal blooms outside, a green interior showing at the rim

Double Bloom

Stoneware · Crystalline, blue on amber outside, green within · 7 × 13 cm

Double Bloom

Stoneware · Crystalline, blue on amber outside, green within · 7 × 13 cm

A small bowl, green crystalline glaze inside, beige and blue crystals outside. A cute little thing.

Looking down into a low stoneware bowl, blue crystals pooling and scattering across the ochre interior

Crystalline Bowl

Stoneware · Blue crystalline over amber · 8 × 13 cm

Crystalline Bowl

Stoneware · Blue crystalline over amber · 8 × 13 cm

The shape is inspired by Japanese chawan bowls. Quite dreamy, and cheerful with it.

A rounded low stoneware bowl, sea-green glaze with a warm ochre rim and dense crystal growth

Green Blob

Stoneware · Green crystalline, ochre break at the rim · 14 × 20 cm

Green Blob

Stoneware · Green crystalline, ochre break at the rim · 14 × 20 cm

A hefty round pot in green crystalline glaze, where the copper oxide green is brightened by the yellows of the iron rust. It makes the colour warmer and more cheerful, radiating some warmth despite all the green.

A large gourd-shaped stoneware vase, bulbous below and drawn up to a tall neck and flared rim, bright green crystalline glaze scattered with pale mint and cream crystal blooms

Big Green Bulb

Stoneware · Green crystalline · 34 × 19 cm

Big Green Bulb

Stoneware · Green crystalline · 34 × 19 cm

A very decorative piece. The Chinese ceramics in the V&A collection had a large influence on me here. The shape is thrown in two pieces and then combined, and the fan crystals are beautiful, evenly spread.

A low rounded stoneware bowl, green crystalline glaze with large pale crystal blooms and amber pooling toward the foot

Island in Green

Stoneware · Green crystalline · 11 × 18 cm

Island in Green

Stoneware · Green crystalline · 11 × 18 cm

A green crystalline glazed bowl-vase, with nice crazing.

A rounded stoneware jar with a short rolled neck, green crystalline glaze mottling from olive to pale teal with amber breaking through at the foot

Green Turtle Neck

Stoneware · Green crystalline · 21 × 17 cm

Green Turtle Neck

Stoneware · Green crystalline · 21 × 17 cm

A full-bodied jar drawn to a short, rolled neck. The crystalline glaze blooms olive to teal across the shoulder, amber gathering low.

A small stoneware vase with a bulbous body and flared ochre rim, green crystals streaked with cobalt

Small Green

Stoneware · Green crystalline with cobalt runs · 16 × 15 cm

Small Green

Stoneware · Green crystalline with cobalt runs · 16 × 15 cm

Small enough to close a hand around. Blue sticks run down where the glaze moved.

A teardrop-shaped stoneware vase with a flared rim, dense green crystalline blooms over the whole body with cobalt-blue streaks running down and amber at one side

Green Teardrop

Stoneware · Green crystalline · 29 × 17 cm

Green Teardrop

Stoneware · Green crystalline · 29 × 17 cm

A full teardrop of a form, its surface packed with green crystal blooms and crossed by a few cobalt streaks running to the foot.

A small round porcelain pot in bright green crystalline glaze, fine crazing across the whole body and a ring of pale crystal fans around the shoulder just below the rim

Mint Green Apple

Porcelain · Green crystalline · 10 × 10 cm

Mint Green Apple

Porcelain · Green crystalline · 10 × 10 cm

Interesting to see how the crystalline glaze performed on porcelain. It ran off the body, and the crystals only formed at the neck.

It crazed as well. Small cracks appeared from the mismatch in hardening between the body underneath and the glaze, and they became the decoration.

Rutile Mist

A flowing, variegated glaze enriched with rutile, creating organic shifts of deep cobalt, green and turquoise as it runs and settles during firing.

A tall two-handled stoneware bottle, volcanic teal-green glaze over the neck and shoulder running to amber below with blue drips, and two rough pale-blue ring handles

Alien Invasion Vessel

Stoneware · Rutile mist, blue & green; volcanic blue handles · 42 × 31 cm

Alien Invasion Vessel

Stoneware · Rutile mist, blue & green; volcanic blue handles · 42 × 31 cm

I was thinking of a modular spacecraft, something assembled from parts rather than made in one piece. So that is how it was built: two thrown sections, a foot carved into the lower one, then the two joined. The handles are rings, thrown and cut, inserted into either side.

The volcanic glaze was meant to do the rest: bubbling up, the surface of something that had burned its way through space. It ran further than I intended, down off the handles and onto the body. I left it there. It reads as damage picked up on the way.

A tall stoneware vase with a bulbous base and long neck, glossy blue-green rutile glaze breaking to amber, hung with several ring handles passing through lugs

Lord of the Rings

Stoneware · Blue rutile · 40 × 30 cm

Lord of the Rings

Stoneware · Blue rutile · 40 × 30 cm

The neck is tall so there is somewhere to watch the rutile and the cobalt interact. One glaze does all of it: blue-black and turquoise where it lies thick, amber brown where it pulls thin. Cold and warm at once, on the same pot, out of the same bucket.

The rings I wanted visible from any angle, so no side of the pot is without one. None of them turn; the glaze holds them where they sit.

The fire did some damage on the way. One of the rings cracked through. Not the ring to rule them all, in the end.

A squat round porcelain pot, deep teal-and-amber glaze with a raised zigzag band, and a cream interior

Her Braided Roundness

Porcelaine · Rutile mist, blue & green · 15 × 20 cm

Her Braided Roundness

Porcelaine · Rutile mist, blue & green · 15 × 20 cm

A round porcelain pot banded with a raised zigzag seam: amber and teal above, deep blue-green below, a pale interior within.

A pear-shaped vase with a flared rim, olive-green glaze with blue rutile streaks running down from the rim

Green & Blue Garlic

Stoneware · Rutile mist, blue & green with runny streaks · 25 × 17 cm

Green & Blue Garlic

Stoneware · Rutile mist, blue & green with runny streaks · 25 × 17 cm

A rutile glaze streaked with ash. The blue runs from the rim and pools green where it settles, shifting to turquoise where the fire caught it.

A small round porcelain pot, glossy blue-green banding over amber, with a white porcelain rim

Blue & Green Blob

Porcelaine · Rutile mist, blue-green over amber · 14 × 14 cm

Blue & Green Blob

Porcelaine · Rutile mist, blue-green over amber · 14 × 14 cm

Porcelain rather than stoneware. A smooth banded glaze, the teal sinking to amber around the belly.

A round lidded porcelain jar, olive-and-amber glaze over a deep teal-blue band, its teal lid tilted ajar to show the pale interior

Blue & Green Plumb Jar

Porcelaine · Rutile mist, blue & green · 12 × 14 cm

Blue & Green Plumb Jar

Porcelaine · Rutile mist, blue & green · 12 × 14 cm

A round, lidded jar. Amber and olive above a deep teal band, the lid glazed the same sea-green and drawn to a small knob.

A squat lidded stoneware jar, dark blue-black rutile glaze breaking to amber, with a ribbon-loop knob and an incised band around the lid rim

Blue Jar

Stoneware · Rutile mist, dark blue · 12 × 18 cm

Blue Jar

Stoneware · Rutile mist, dark blue · 12 × 18 cm

A low, lidded jar. Deep blue-black running to amber, the lid carved with a fine band and drawn up to a ribbon-loop knob.

A tall ribbed stoneware vase with a rolled brown rim, olive-green above shifting to bands of teal-green below

Ripple

Stoneware · Rutile mist, green & blue · 20 × 9 cm

Ripple

Stoneware · Rutile mist, green & blue · 20 × 9 cm

Tall and ribbed. The glaze wavers down the bands, olive gathering to a deep teal-green at the foot.

A baluster vase in mottled green and ochre, the lower body incised with fine geometric lines (arrows, rectangles and circles) with turquoise gathering where the glaze pools in the cuts

Hidden Tribute 2 (Paul Klee)

Stoneware · Rutile blue over ochre, turquoise pooling in the incised lines · 26 × 19 cm

Hidden Tribute 2 (Paul Klee)

Stoneware · Rutile blue over ochre, turquoise pooling in the incised lines · 26 × 19 cm

The tribute is carved, and it is meant to be hard to see. I cut the abstraction into the leather-hard clay with Klee’s more geometric work of the late 1930s in front of me, not copying any one painting but borrowing the vocabulary: arrows, staves, blocks, a circle that could be an eye.

Then I glazed over it. The rutile covers the carving almost completely, which is the point. The marks only surface where the glaze runs thin across an edge, or gathers and darkens in a cut. In the wrong light most of it disappears, and you find the rest by turning the pot.

The third photograph is the source rather than the pot: Paul Klee, Vorhaben (Intention), 1938, 126.

Other works

A cream porcelain teapot with an overhead loop handle and a short spout, hand-painted with a great tit perched among green leaves and coral blossoms

Tit in the Bloom Teapot

Porcelaine · Hand-painted under a clear glaze · 21 × 21 cm

Tit in the Bloom Teapot

Porcelaine · Hand-painted under a clear glaze · 21 × 21 cm

A porcelain teapot with an overhead handle and a small spout, hand-painted with a great tit among leaves and blossom. The lid is a flower opening around its knob.