This is the time of year when I get desperate for green! I
welcome every sprout and sprig, even the celebratory shamrocks rolled out for
the season. I can’t claim to be authentically Irish, but my very Irish husband,
in his youthful romanticism, used to tell me that I had shamrocks in my eyes.
Who would have guessed I would be happily glazing them half a century later?
The shamrocks go on mobiles and windchimes. They do
extremely well there, in large part because of their rounded shape. That
protects them if they are hung where the wind blows the pieces into each other.
Some mobile items, such as dogs with tails, for example, or tools with their
elongated forms, are more vulnerable when the pieces knock together. The shamrocks
come in multiple sizes and have only one commonality: they all end up some kind
of green. But you would not know that in their early stages for, even glazed,
stoneware seldom resembles its final color before it comes out of the high fire
kiln. First, the clay is rolled and cut out. Then each shamrock is cleaned so
its edges are smooth and fairly regular. It dries for days, maybe a week,
before it is bisque fired. Then it is ready for glazing. But even then they are
not very green. Next time you will see what happens to them!
I have to admit that shamrock green is not my favorite
shade, so I use glazes that are forest green, green tweed, olive, tourmaline, and
celadon. Such glazing liberties may be intrinsic to my English and Scottish genes,
although that would not explain everything. My German/Polish American mother always
made soda bread and cooked a huge pot of corned beef and cabbage for Saint
Patrick’s Day. She even named a stray puppy found that day “Shamus.” Mom also referred
to my husband Bill as her “wild Irish rogue” and knew him by name long after
she lost track of her own kids. Talk about the luck of the Irish. In any event,
it all makes for wonderful greens as winter releases its hold and we near spring.
