Glaze down Babylon

Well,here we are-on the third attempt,something suspiciously like an oil-spot glaze- glazed a bit thinner,fired a bit more quickly to a slightly lower temperature- the fine-tuning of a glaze,in other words;as such,I can now see that I over-corrected [as is usually the case] and now need to thicken,quicken and hotten just a tad.It's a far cry from Mr. Ii's magnificent oil-spot that I showed you a few days ago,but I'm quite pleased that I managed to get even this far.The next question is what,if anything,to do with this glaze.It's dark,which means hard to sell,and,to the untrained eye,maybe not vastly different in appearance from,say,my crystal glazes.As it is,I spend a lot of time with customers explaining the different firing and glazing techniques- reduction,crystal,salt,anagama,lustre- do I want to add another?While mulling over these matters,and enjoying a [hopefully permanent] lull in the bombardment on our little city,I am firing a crystal-glaze kiln today- the first in the current series.In fact.the kiln should have finished steaming by now,so I'll creep upstairs and close its lid,so that it can get on with the firing as quickly as possible.