THE STUDIO OF NICOLE MERKENS

Once again, to recap…A “Spirit Guide” is defined by Wikipedia as: "Spirit guide" is a term used by the Western tradition of Spiritualist Churches, mediums, and psychics to describe an entity that remains a disincarnate spirit in order to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being. For my third series I made four  main  figures and three sprites from the pubic bone up. They will sit on a table and seem to be emerging from the surface they are presented on. Like my first series, these figures represent spirit guides that a soul may have in one lifetime on earth but they will be evolved souls- they take on the characteristics of the next four color planes, Green, Blue,   Blue Violet and Purple. They each have a specific talisman for a lesson learned in life. It is either be in the form of jewelry or hair embellishment. Their colors are based on pallets of auras. As a soul ascends onto higher spiritual planes your aura ch...

Triaxial Chart Triaxial  blending is a method of testing varying amounts of three different materials or colors . For my Triaxial blends I used Dixon Clay that I low fired to cone 04. I made 21 pinch pots and followed the chart to the left. I mixed Nepheline Syenite, Frit 3124 and Georgia Kaolin. For my high fire experiments I used Aurora White Clay and fired to cone 6. I don't tend to fire much higher so I choose these two temps to go to for my future work exploration. For the Triaxial for this firing I used: Custer Feldspar, Magnesium Carbonate and Silica. pinch pots bisque fired- ready for low fire ingredients a=custer feldspar b=silica c=Mag carbonate a= Neph Syenite b=Frit 3124 c=ga kaolin everything was measured with extreme care ready to be glaze fired numbers 1- 21 cone 6. Notice how they get dry and really cracked looking #1 in Aurora cone 6 firing My findings for the high fire tests were t...