Whew – we are the busy gals – a bisque, salt firing and now a gas firing in the space of a week –

 Hard work all round on Friday with the salt glaze. Four of the young students stayed up through the night to stoke the fire. In spite of their best efforts, they couldn’t reach the required temperature for Jakob to work to increase the heat quickly as this kiln was meant to do. It was interesting watching Jakob when he arrived at 6:00 a.m. because he knew right away from the colour of the inside of the kiln as well as the smoke belching out that the kiln had many hours to go for this firing…

 We spent the Friday stoking the kiln with wood and coaxing the pyrometer to 1250 degrees centigrade before shutting it down with just a little reduction (reducing the oxygen). It cooled all day Saturday and by noon,  Sunday, Margaret had opened the damper and fuel boxes to let some air in and around 5:00 p.m., we opened the door to mixed responses about the results…. of course, the students milled around as there is always excitement about unloading the kiln, even on a Sunday afternoon.  Margaret was initially very disappointed as she fires salt (with gas) at U of Wyoming and knows the result she wanted but it is very different with the ash deposits of a wood fired kiln – part of the beauty of it. Deb was rightly thrilled with the results of the sigliatta finish on her babies – perfect temperature for her and I was very pleased with a few of my pieces – Herend porcelain which I had used exclusively, should be fired to about 1300 degrees so the work did not have quite the brilliance I had hoped for, but nonetheless, happy with some of the pieces.

Not much rest for the wicked though, as Debra and I needed to get glazing right away to load a small gas kiln – about 4 cubic feet which doesn’t sound like much, but it kept us busy for about 6 hours glazing and loading – this kiln will be fired to around 1320 degrees celsius and will have lots of reduction and as Debra and I have only porcelain in it, we are looking forward to the results – no stoking the fire with lots of wood here! Automated timed firing… might be something for me to look into for my studio at home.