To kick start 2024 I recently attended Warrandyte Pottery Expo. This is a coming together of professionally established potters, and emerging potters through Australia.
I would like to personally thank all those returning customers, new customers and those who were interested in educating themselves in the woodfiring process.
I have recently completed my anagama firing for the year. It was a special event in that I sort the assistance of two up and coming wood firers who I met earlier in the year at the Sturt woodfiring event under the guidance of Kazuya Ishida
I would like to think that I could achieve another firing in ‘Minkie’ this year however there is an enormous amount of work that goes into each firing.
So I am going to have to settle on firing my catenary arch kiln in preparation for my Open Studio 3rd & 4th December 2022 from 10am-4pm both days.
The inaugural firing has taken place!!!!…the build up was a time filled with excitement and anxiety. I am so pleased to report that temperature was reached with cone 12 just about touching its toes and was so even throughout. I started with a very small fire on day 1 and by evening the temperature was reading around 90 degrees C. Throughout the night, every 2 to 3 hours I stoked a little more wood to keep the warmth happen and to thoroughly dry everything out. The following morning the kiln was reading just over 300 deg. C and it was ready to go. The firing finished around 9pm.
Such mixed emotions when unpacking a kiln…excitement to see whats inside and a feeling of being overwhelmed with expectations compared with results on hand. One needs time to digest the results. The kiln has produced some beautiful surfaces with good reduction, glaze melt together with some surfaces which make you questions why and how did that happen?
This is what feeds my curiosity to keep woodfiring…
I am currently in the process of pulling down my bourry box kiln which has been part of my studio life for the past 32 years. It has had many facelifts and produced some beautiful pots with soft subtle surfaces. I initially salt glazed in this kiln and then over the years decreased the amount of salt introduced. Each time the kiln was fired the residue salt would re vaporise and create beautiful flashing. I have found this kiln to be particularly good for tableware as the works were protected from the direct flame which is somewhat different to my anagama. I am now considering my next kiln to build….stay tuned.
