THE MAGIC OF RUTILE

Pulling triumph out of a disaster.

Rutile, when it's pure is titanium oxide - but it's almost never pure, coming with iron oxide & when you mix this with some tin oxide, some feldspar & a few other ingredients & fire it to 1280°C in a reducing atmosphere you get these incredible turquoises, oranges, blacks & whites...

A "reducing" atmosphere is when you seal up the kiln to keep the air out & in order to keep burning, the flames take oxygen from the oxides in all the glaze materials & from the clay itself.

Funky hey?