FARPHORIA PORCELAIN AND CERAMIC PRODUCTION
Porcelain slowly evolved in China and finally came into ‘production’ about 2000 years ago.
Its manufacturing process is more demanding than that for stoneware and it has usually been regarded as the most prestigious type of pottery for its delicacy, strength, and the purest of white colour. Technically, it is an elastic paste - a mixture of kaolin clay mineral and silica glass sand.
The strength and translucency of porcelain arises from vitrification during the firing in the kiln - a type of ceramic oven - up to 1400 °C. After the high temperature firing porcelain becomes completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent (except when of considerable thickness), and resonant.
One of the most ancient types of porcelain is bone china. Bone china is a type of porcelain that is composed of bone ash, kaolin, and feldspar. Bone china is the strongest of the porcelains due to the calcification derived from cattle bones. Its high mechanical and physical strength and chip resistance allows it to be produced very thin. The 21st century brought up some cultural and ethical issues such as the notion of ‘Islamic bone china’ which is made using only bone ash from halal animals. Due to the use of up to 50% animal bones in the bone china mixture, the production is practically animal based which can be problematic for vegans and vegetarians.
The majority of the pieces you see on this website is made from flax porcelain. It is a very strong, versatile, translucent and flexible porcelain. Its reinforcing properties are provided by the high content of paper flax fiber that allows the mixture to be stretched without tearing. Flax fibers are all vegetable and organic and will burn out when fired that’s why the final object will come out noticeably lighter. The flax paste feels cool, wet yet clean to the touch. When you pinch it between thumb and forefingers, you feel it gets thinner and thinner until it becomes a second skin with the fingerprints emerged. And it feels clean. Your hands feel cleaner after you have used it.
It feels white.
