Method
Young-Jae Lee uses porcelain and stoneware clay bodies, in some instances blending them to achieve optimal throwability and density. Porcelain yields a white (or almost white) fired body; stoneware clay, a beige, more earthen shade.
Young-Jae Lee throws her vessels on an electric wheel following the Eastern style of turning the wheel counterclockwise. Trimming, however, is done following the Western, clockwise, method whereby leather-hard (moist, but no longer soft) clay is removed in shavings with a trimming tool.
In their unfired, still moist state, the cylinder vases are decorated with engobes (thick clay slurry). These engobes have to be adjusted to the degree of shrinkage of the clay body so the decoration does not flake off after drying or firing. After the bisque firing—the first firing, which hardens the clay body, at around 950 °C—the vessels are glazed. In the case of larger vessels, glaze is poured; smaller bowls are generally dipped. Painted decoration with cobalt, iron, or copper oxides are applied with a brush prior to glazing. Feldspathic glazes are used, in some cases mixed with ash. Young-Jae Lee’s only coloring agent is iron oxide.
The color of glazes depends on the kiln atmosphere: iron oxide, for example, colors yellow to brown in an oxidizing (high in oxygen) atmosphere; in a reducing (low in oxygen) atmosphere it colors green; while copper changes from green to red. The glaze firings are done in a gas kiln at around 1300 °C.
Wood firing results in a richer tone and often leads to uncontrollable changes in color. In a wood-fired kiln, pieces are fired at temperatures up to 1300 °C for nine to ten hours without interruption. Roughly 1.5 cubic meters of wood is required for a firing.