Glaze Research

Ian Currie lived and worked in Queensland, Australia, on a community at Maryvale about an hour and a half's drive from Brisbane.

In 1971-2 he spent over a year in Japan studying many aspects of Japanese ceramics, including their approach to glazes. Upon his return to Australia, he made a living producing functional handmade stoneware and porcelain.

His interest in glazes eventually led to lecturing in the subject Australia-wide. In 1980 he founded a correspondence course in Stoneware Glazes for the Australian Flying Arts School (now Flying Arts Inc.) and taught this course for several years. He was also a flying pottery lecturer with AFAS during this period.

He is best known for the method he has developed over the years for studying glazes - a very efficient systematic technique that quickly reveals glaze principles while discovering beautiful glazes, and explained in his books. His original book, "Stoneware Glazes - A Systematic Approach" presents his "grid method" in the original format which was Seger-formula-based. It also provides in the second half a comprehensive study of specific stoneware glaze types, both traditional and modern.

His latest book is "Revealing Glazes - Using the Grid Method". Here he uses a recipe-based system which makes the grid method more accessible to potters with an aversion to chemistry and calculations. It also extends the grid method to cover a full range of firing temperatures.