Zinc Silicate Crystalline Glaze Pottery
Braden Gabriel Biography
Canadian artist Braden Gabriel, born in Vancouver, now residing on Pender Island B.C. grew up in Laguna Beach, California. He discovered ceramics at Laguna Beach High School and later studied and mastered the craft especially Raku at San Diego State University.
His ceramics have been exhibited at La Jolla, San Diego, Laguna Beach and Vancouver and is in many private collections throughout U.S. and Canada, as well as in the acquisitions of other well respected artists.
He was involved in the clay community of Laguna Beach and showed at the Sawdust Art festival in Laguna for many years.
Braden’s spiritual life permeates his artistic expression. He calls his crystalline glazes heavenly inspired forms of beauty “canvases,” reveling in luminous mysteries of crystal glazes.
He transcended from doing traditional types of pottery and Raku, to crystalline glazes, after being inspired by Phil Hamling and his very informative webpage on crystal glazes. Which are not only challenging and time consuming to formulate. and fire, but require meticulous attention to every detail from clay body to chemistry of the glazes and to the complicated multi-temperature firing, resulting in glazes that never fade retaining the original luster.
Due to the length of time required to master each glaze, and the success rate being very low, sometimes resulting in no crystals even with the same glaze compounding and firing program, very few potters today use this lengthy, and unpredictable glaze process which makes crystalline pottery even more sought after.
Braden Gabriel: 250-629-6722
Email: mgabriel@shaw.ca