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Wyoming Area announces new coaching hires

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Sources: Teacher suspended with pay at Wilkes-Barre Area CTC

<p>DALLAS TWP. &#8212; You see the heat as flames flare out the two holes on the top of the kiln, burning at nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. You feel the heat, when the gas jets shut off and the kiln is hoisted up. You smell it when the glazed clay is moved into cans of wood shavings that ignite and spew dark smoke.</p><p>Yet the heat is the merely the crucible for chemicals you<em> don&#8217;t</em> see, the complex mix of ingredients that gives the pottery a preserving, glinting sheen. And the chemicals &#8212; or more precisely, the source of them &#8212; is what the experiments at Misericordia University&#8217;s art studio are all about.</p><p>Best-case scenario, Misericordia artist-in-residence Skip Sensbach and chemistry major Chabely Espinal are creating a new ceramic glaze that will reduce the amount of bottled glass in landfills (because recycling can be too expensive) while reducing the environmental impact of mining and transporting silica for traditional glazing.</p><p>Mixed with the right quantity of other ingredients such as clay and dolomite, the silica in the crushed glass will replace mined silica, the duo hope.</p><p>On Tuesday, Sensbach and Espinal conducted the first testing of two new glaze mixes made from crushed bottle glass acquired from local restaurants. They started with eight clay extrusions &#8212; think of those old Play-Doh toys that squished the putty into long shapes of stars, tubes, or in this case, a sort of square pipe.</p><p>Two extrusions had been coated with crushed bottle glass, four (two each) with experimental mixtures of crushed glass and other ingredients, and two with traditional glaze.</p><p>The all-glass and traditional glazes &#8220;act as our controls,&#8221; Sensbach said. Glass makes a poor glaze because of &#8220;crazing,&#8221; or creation of fine cracks, and fragility. But mixed with other ingredients to resemble traditional glazing powder, it should work fine.</p><p>The two test glazes came out only so-so &#8212; more stable than glass, less glossy than regular glaze. &#8220;Now we go back and try some other mixes,&#8221; Sensbach said</p><p>The project, conducted under the auspices of the university&#8217;s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, has been an educational mix of science and art for both Sensbach, who is also an instructor at Misericordia, and Espinal, a Hazleton resident hoping to get into pre-med school.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s empirical science, and there&#8217;s ceramic science,&#8221; Sensbach said with a smile. He provides the latter, offering a strong understanding of the general principals that make a glaze work. Espinal provides the former, explaining to him the nuances of a carbon oxide and a calcium oxide.</p><p>And when she reports a proposed mix is &#8220;2 percent off&#8221; in some ingredient, he reminds her it doesn&#8217;t matter as long as the glaze works in the kiln.</p><p>&#8220;I had no idea art had so much science,&#8221; Espinal, 20, said. &#8220;I enjoy the opportunity to work on something small that could become something big.&#8221;</p><p>And if they do work out the right mix that allows potters worldwide to stop using mined silica and replace it with recycled bottle glass, what will the name of the glaze be?</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know. I haven&#8217;t had a chance to think that far ahead,&#8221; Sensbach said.</p><p>A humble suggestion: &#8220;The Miseri Glaze&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Misericordia University pottery instructor Skip Sensbach holds up a ceramic mold that was fired in a kiln with a glaze from crushed glass bottles and other ingredients. He and chemistry student Chabely Espinal are experimenting with ways to use bottles to replace mined silica in glazing. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/web1_TTL062117miseriglass1-4.jpg</photo0><caption0>Misericordia University pottery instructor Skip Sensbach holds up a ceramic mold that was fired in a kiln with a glaze from crushed glass bottles and other ingredients. He and chemistry student Chabely Espinal are experimenting with ways to use bottles to replace mined silica in glazing. </caption0><photoCredit0>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/web1_TTL062117miseriglass2-4.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Artist-in-residence Skip Sensbach opens cans that helped carbon from smoke alter the glaze of ceramic pieces in the first of a series of experiments to use bottle glass as a substitute for silica in pottery glazing Tuesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/web1_TTL062117miseriglass2-4.jpg</photo1><caption1>Artist-in-residence Skip Sensbach opens cans that helped carbon from smoke alter the glaze of ceramic pieces in the first of a series of experiments to use bottle glass as a substitute for silica in pottery glazing Tuesday. </caption1><photoCredit1>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/web1_TTL062117miseriglass4-4.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Skip Sensbach moves ceramic molds from a kiln to cans with wood shavings, in a firing process known as Raku. The chips ignite, and the carbon in the smoke alters the glaze. Sensbach and chemistry student Chabely Espinal are experimenting with the use of crushed bottle glass in glazing powder. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/web1_TTL062117miseriglass4-4.jpg</photo2><caption2>Skip Sensbach moves ceramic molds from a kiln to cans with wood shavings, in a firing process known as Raku. The chips ignite, and the carbon in the smoke alters the glaze. Sensbach and chemistry student Chabely Espinal are experimenting with the use of crushed bottle glass in glazing powder. </caption2><photoCredit2>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Professor, student experimenting with old bottles in pottery-making</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Misericordia team working to create ‘greener’ version of ceramic glaze