Ten glazes named for Piran

There are ten glazes in this studio, plus one outlier. Each one is named for somewhere I look at every day, the sea below, the salt-pans south of the bay, the bell tower catching the first light in the morning. Naming a glaze fixes its meaning. Without a name it's just a colour.

Adriatic Cobalt

The deepest blue in the catalog. Saturated, almost black at the rim where the glaze pools thicker, and a clean cobalt across the body. It's the sea at noon, the way the Adriatic looks from the marina when there's no wind and the light is high. The flagship colour, and the one most people choose first. It wears beautifully on the Bay Fish Platter and the Citrus Reamer.

Adriatic Blue

A lighter, more open blue. Not the saturated Cobalt, not the milky Sky, somewhere in between. It's the colour of the open Adriatic on a sunny morning, looked at from a boat heading out. Quieter than Cobalt. Wonderful on the Whisper Vases, the small painted blossom on the side sits perfectly against this blue.

Bay Turquoise

A reactive glaze, meaning the kiln plays with it. It comes out brighter than the others, with darker speckles that show up like a slight stipple in summer light. The colour is the bay shallows under July sun, looked at from above. Slightly shifted from piece to piece, no two are the same.

Bay Matt

The same family as Turquoise but matte and quieter. The bay before the wind picks up, when the surface is glassy and almost grey-green. A more reserved colour for people who don't want a piece that competes with the meal on it.

Salt-Pan Sky

The pale, soft blue of Sečovlje saltpans at first light, before the sun is fully up but after the dark has gone. Sečovlje is south of Piran, twenty minutes by car. The salt-pans there have been worked since the 13th century, and on a still morning the standing water reflects a sky-blue that almost reads as white. This is that colour. It's used on the Fish Soap Dish in the Bath Set.

Olive Grove

Speckled deep green, the colour of the terraced olive groves above town. Istria has olive trees that are eight hundred years old in some plots. The leaves are a particular green that's neither bright nor dark, with small breaks of silver when the wind turns the underside up. Olive Grove glaze does the same thing in the kiln, a steady deep green with small flecks where the iron in the recipe surfaces.

Linden Spring

A warm, alive yellow-green. Named for the linden tree, which is the first thing in the courtyard to turn green every spring. There are two weeks every April when the leaves are exactly this colour, fresh, almost translucent, before they harden into summer green.

Bell-Tower Gold

A warm yellow, leaning toward ochre. Named for St. George's bell tower at the top of the old town, which catches the morning light an hour before anything else does. From Tartini Square I can see it every morning, and for about twenty minutes after sunrise it glows like this. The glaze can be inconsistent, sometimes brighter, sometimes more amber, depending on the kiln load, and I let it be.

Sunset Coral

The brightest colour in the catalog. Warm red-orange, the colour of an Adriatic sunset on the limestone walls of the old town in late summer. Reads as bright and warm, but it's not loud. Looks especially well on the small pieces, the Sardine Plate, the small Whisper Vase.

Vespers Plum

A muted purple, named for twilight in Tartini Square. A glaze for evenings. Slightly elusive. Looks one way under daylight and another under candlelight, which is what you want from a piece that gets used at dinner.

Old Brick

Rust-brown, warm, the colour of weathered Piran brick. Used on the Bloom Squares and the small painted vases, anywhere a bright glaze would be too much.

Glazes get retired and added a few times a year. A recipe that works perfectly one season can stop working when the clay supplier changes their batch. New ones come in slowly, tested through dozens of small samples before they go on anything for sale. Browse the current shop to see which glazes are alive right now, a glaze name on this list doesn't guarantee a piece is available in it.