Box of Secrets - Stoneware box completed

The Box of Secrets – Finished at Last

The Box of Secrets stoneware box is finally finished. The journey to the final result, however, involved a few unexpected twists along the way.

After the second transparent glaze firing, I was initially quite disappointed. The layered slips appeared very flat and seemed to detract from the texture of the twig-moulded clay rather than highlighting it. The pink slip, in particular, fired to an unattractive colour that didn’t complement the rest of the piece.

Rather than accepting the result, I decided to rework the surface. The main box was gently heated with a heat gun to help the new glaze adhere, and a university tenmoku glaze was applied over the top. This additional firing made a significant difference, giving the surface far more depth and greatly improving the overall appearance of the box.

For the lid, platinum lustre was applied to the mechanical form. Care was taken to apply neither too much nor too little, following the instructions closely—lustre is definitely a case where a little goes a long way. The effect after firing was fantastic, adding a subtle metallic highlight that looks very effective as a finial.

Now that the box is fully assembled, I can see a couple of things I would do differently next time.

First, I would avoid using the pink slip altogether. Second, the mechanical lustre finial on the lid should have been made considerably larger; at its current size it feels a little too small for the piece.

Despite these lessons learned, it’s satisfying to see the Box of Secrets completed, and the process has provided plenty of insight for future work.