A Wood Firing Weekend

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog since August... I guess it's a testament to the fact that I've been busy. I've got boxes and boxes of pots glazed and ready to be fired, and plans to make even more in anticipation of the upcoming holiday season.

But while money is nice, it's not the cash that drives me to create, it's my love of the ceramic process. The notion that I can sell a lot of pots in the coming months is a pleasant reassurance that I can make as much work as I want without worrying that my apartment is going to be buried in pottery.

Anyhow, most recently I helped Amanda fire her wood kiln, dubbed "Fuego Del Loba," for the first time. We'll see what the results look like soon, but what really matters is that the firing was such a good time. How often do you get to spend 28 hours straight with good friends and interesting company? The two integrated pizza ovens yielded amazing results, and if the pottery comes out half as good as the pizza tasted, I'll be satisfied.

Amanda's Wood Kiln

A few weeks ago, I participated in a wood kiln building workshop led by Gary Greenberg of Clarion University. The task at hand—to build Amanda's single chamber bourry box wood kiln. We didn't quite get it finished in one weekend, but we all learned a ton from "Greeny."

And despite the fact that we were laying bricks for three days in the 90° heat, it was remarkably fun. Pictured to the right are me with the rubber mallet, Professor Greenberg and Amanda's awesome husband, Mike.

Now it's just a matter of finding the time to finish what we started and fire it. I can't wait!

Big Al is Loaded!

It seems like it's been an eternity since our last reduction firing. That's how it goes when you've got a beast like Big Al, though. Big Al is the nickname given to MCG's large Alpine HF60 updraft kiln. With a kiln this big, you've got to make a lot of work to fill it. Thankfully the summer program students did their best, and Bill Strickland has taken care of the rest with his large bowls and platters.

As for my work, this time around it's mostly small tea and sake cups—guinomi and yunomi. I did make the large bowl (bottom left) for one of the students, and the tall lamp body (top shelf, rear) while working alongside the kids one day this summer.

I'm particularly excited to see how some of the glazes I mixed will turn out, all of which came from John Britt's book. I added 3% red iron oxide to Richard Aerni's basic wood ash recipe, which I'm hoping will be interesting... I mixed up the Fake Nuka #1 recipe, and a carbon-trap Shino, too. I applied each of them to buff stoneware, dark stoneware and porcelain pieces, and placed them in various locations throughout the kiln so I can see the effects of reduction.

Watch for new photos on Flickr after we unload on Thursday.

Raku Firing

I've been learning how to fire the raku kiln under the watchful eye of my good friend Junji. This week I invited another good friend, Brad Quartuccio, to come photograph the firing. Brad snapped quite a few shots with his various film cameras, but it will be a while before I get to see the results. The best of his digital photos are posted on his website, Random Precision Photo.

As with last time, experimentation was the order of the day. Junji made a bed of small twigs, one of sawdust and another of newspaper to rest the red-hot pots on. I put one on a solid block of ice, and immersed another in a foot-deep pile of snow. Two went into iron boxes filled with sawdust, and the final two were set on the bare concrete to cool. After a few minutes, I submerged each pot in a bucket of water to quickly cool them down for easy handling. For the second firing in a row, nothing cracked.

Success!

Here is what my shelves look like after this recent reduction firing. I was very productive this winter, and so there are two full boxes of work that aren't on these shelves.

One of the things I'm most proud of is this set of Kotler's Orange-Grey mugs and serving platter. I made these upon request and they became some lucky lady's Valentine's Day gift.

Tiny Bubbles

In ceramics, nothing is certain. There are so many variables that even the artist who controls every part of the process isn't really in complete control. Of course there are things you can do as an artist to minimize failures—for example, checking your underglaze to make sure it's approved for cone 10, not cone 5. So the sgraffito carved mugs that I was so excited about all bubbled horrendously and were ruined.

Lesson learned. Thankfully, I had lots of other pieces in the kiln. Some others failed, as well, but most pieces were successful. Some came out amazingly well. More to come...