The Edward Orton Jr. Ceramic Foundation
And the field trips continue! This week we visited the Orton Cone factory located in Westerville, OH outside Columbus. The pyrometric cones that we use in ceramics today were developed by Edward Orton Jr. His father Edward Orton Sr. was the first president of Ohio State University. Edward Orton Jr. started the first ceramic engineering school in the United States at OSU, later the fine arts ceramics program started as a branch of this program.
Orton developed his cone system gathering research from the work of Seger Cones originally developed in Germany. The cone is an important part of firing ceramics because it measures the heat work in the kiln. Heatwork relates to the effect of time and temperature in the kiln. Not simply the temperature that could be measured with a thermocouple.
Visit my teaching resource Oh Happy Clay for more information on cones and firing!
Today Lindsay Scypta came in as a visiting artist to the class I teach. The students were so inspired! Thank you Lindsay for taking time out of your busy day to come visit us!
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