Playing with Fire

Jeff was part of the wood firing crew at STARworks last week during FireFest. He brought of few my pots to be fired in the salt chamber.

These were made with Highwater Loafers Glory. I had some lackluster ones and a few with some good toasty-ness. Of course the ones with the best color had other issues, like a slight separation at the handle join and one with an s-crack. I plan to keep the s-crack mug for myself, which I rarely do. The others are still sale-able but at a reduced price. That's the crap shoot of wood firing.

The plan this weekend was that when Jeff was done his shift of stoking the wood kiln, he would come back to Seagrove and bring me to FireFest at STARworks, in Star NC. I really wanted to see this year's giant sculpture, that was firing throughout the event, being unveiled. At 7pm it was drizzling and 46 degrees outside. I opted to stay home in my pajamas, curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine. Jeff had a few great photos and there was some cool videos posted to Facebook. The sculpture this year was created by Sunkoo Yuh. Firefest is an annual thing. You can read details about the event here: STARworks FireFest

Drummer Hoff fired it off...

Here is little peek inside Fred Johnston's wood kiln yesterday...

 I like his method of loading on either side, then filling the center with shelves. The side shelves are really big. It kind of reminds me of a walk in closet!

Jeff's big pots are on the top shelf near the back. They are firing today. Fred started early this morning and they expect to be done some time after midnight.

Fall is in the air and I am feeling productive!

I was happy with the ginkgo leaf carvings on cylindrical vases so I decided to give it a go on the interiors of small bowls. I spent a couple hours one afternoon last week throwing two boards of bowls. The next morning I looked at them and wasn't happy at all. At least ten ended up in the scrap bucket. I started over and I think I am much happier with the shape of these. I have 11 completed and another 10 to finish today. In between carving bowls  I am still assembling piggy banks. I need to break it up for fear I will get tired of looking at those cute little faces.

On the firing front, Jeff worked two shifts firing David's wood kiln last week and then got a call from Fred Johnston that he had some space in his kiln and could use some help with loading and firing. The downside of having a gallery at your studio is that someone (meaning me!) needs to be here for potential customers. I miss out on the excitement of the firing, but I am still psyched about seeing our pots finished. We had a quite a few pots that had been hanging around for more that a year, just waiting for a wood firing opportunity. David's kiln will get unloaded this week, Fred's will be fired tomorrow and opened before the weekend. It's like a birthday and Christmas all in one week!

working...

We are going to be participating in a wood/salt firing in Carthage this summer, so I have been making pots for that in between the usual repertoire...

 The two bottles in the middle were made with STARworks new Seagrove clay. It's formulated specifically for firing in wood and salt. It was so different to throw with after using the Highwater Aurora clay. It's groggy and sandy, and throws quite well.

I finished a bunch of these bowl yesterday... finally. It seems like it was forever ago that I threw them. The humidity meant they took forever to dry enough to trim. These will be shino on the inside and gloss green on the exterior.

Lately it seems the weeks are flying by. It scares me a little because we have a 10  9 day show to do in NH the first week of August.

10  9 days = lots of pots to be made!

and the results are in...

i finally had the opportunity to take some quick pictures of pots from the ground hog kiln...

i had quite a few spoons in this firing 

Jeff's goblets fired beautifully

if you look closely these pigs are branded with the word "bacon" on the sides... they really should say "salt pork"!

slip trailed bowls

see that blob on the left side? baby sh&t looking drips from the kiln ceiling... unfortunately we had a quite a few pots with those ugly blobs. some we will live with, others will go to the shard pile.

take a peek...

Jeff took these pictures through the salt ports of the kiln, last night. This morning the temperature was at 178 degrees. I opened up the primary air in the front and took a couple of bricks out of the door. It should be cool enough to unload later today and hopefully the rain will let up. More pics to come!

all fired up...

yesterday we fired the ground hog kiln, at the NC Pottery Center, for the second time. we felt we would get better results firing longer and slower than the last time and jeff had quite a few raw pots in there. we preheated overnight and finished at about 2:00 a.m. this morning...

loading this kiln is the most painful thing. you have to crawl in on your belly to load. thank you jeff for loading the really claustrophobic, back of the kiln!

these are the pots right in front of the firebox... they should be nice and toasty.

Jeff Brown, Rob Buller, and Levi Mahan, stoking the kiln

roaring flames coming out of the chimney... that's the fun part!

ready to add salt... we pour the salt on flat boards that we then use to stoke in the front firebox. we also poured salt through the peeps on the top of the kiln. we used 30 pounds of salt.

we also did some side stoking during this firing, which we didn't do the last time. this was in hopes of getting a higher temperature in the back of the kiln. it was colder than the front last time. it took some time, but we did end up with ^11 down in both the front and the back.

tuesday is unloading day.

plodding along...

...as i was walking back to the studio from the mailbox this morning, i noticed that jeff found a new spot to dry some clay in the recycling process... on the bench amidst our "garden pots".

we are getting ready for a salt firing in the ground hog kiln at the NC Potter Center this weekend and aside from losing our  kitty, IV, i have been sick with a cold that has knocked me on my ass. jeff has been working until the wee hours of the morning getting pots and orders finished and i have been limping along. thankfully there isn't much glazing involved in a salt firing and i did get a lot done today.

i am experimenting with some Albany slip on these bottle forms. the interiors are temnoku. 

our friend Rob, who teaches ceramics and critical thinking at Chowan University here in NC, is coming for the weekend. he is bringing pots and helping us with the firing. we always have fun when Rob is in town and we are looking forward to seeing him!

whirlwind weekend

we consider our anniversary celebration a success... we made some sales, had a great party Saturday night with lots of friends & food and didn't get to bed until 3:00 am. our friend Rob from Virginia came up for the weekend and stayed through until today. we hadn't seen him in a year so we had some catching up to do.
yesterday and today have been spent recovering.

our new salt glazed pots looked great set out under the tent in the front of the gallery...

a big thank you to all who came and helped us to celebrate... everyone has made us feel welcome in this wonderful community of Seagrove. we feel very fortunate to be here.

lil' spoons

i went through a spoon making phase a few years ago. since we were salt firing i decided to make a few. they are a good size for condiments... also made a couple of spreaders as well. i fired one in the gas kiln with shino glaze, fired on stilts.
pardon the lousy picture, it was taken at night in the studio.

the pots are out!

last night we unloaded the groundhog kiln...

unfortunately Jeff's big pot cracked. we now have another lawn ornament for the front of the gallery.

i am happy with my teapots and watering cans. most of jeff's smaller vases look great

i have been back to slip trailing. my great niece's personalized birthday bowl broke and i had to make a replacement. when i was done with it i decided to decorated some other greenware that was on my ware rack.

not sure how i feel about the swirly mugs brushed with slip...

David's jugs, packed up and ready to go

this kiln fires in about 8 hours. overall we were happy with the results. of course there will be some re-fires, seems there always are with salt and wood. a few liner glazes look like they didn't get enough reduction. next time we fire, jeff says we will do longer reduction as well as stoke an extra hour after we salt.

we fired the gas kiln here on sunday and today we will unload it... from peaking in we can see that the shinos are looking good!

Friday we loaded the groundhog kiln at the NC Pottery Center. David Garner from Turn & Burn Pottery offered to help us load and fire the kiln. Extra hands made the job easier and also allowed me to keep the gallery open for most of the day.

Can't wait to see how this big pot of Jeff's turns out!

 I was glad that my job consisted of wadding pots and handing them to Jeff to load. The kiln is tight quarters and I am a little claustrophobic.

Time to light the fire! We pre-heated overnight. David lives next door to the kiln so he did the late night.

David poured salt through the peeps on top of the kiln. He had lots of jugs in the back that he wanted to get hit with the salt directly. We kept our pots towards the front and salted through the stoke hole. We wanted our pots to get more of a fume than a direct hit.

The kiln fired in about 9 hours, which we found amazing since our little gas kiln sometimes takes longer! The plan is to unload Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. 

New pots in time for our 1 year in Seagrove, anniversary event! Along with the new pots we will have refreshments and door prizes.  The gallery is open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm both Saturday and Sunday (July 9th & 10th). Saturday night at 6:00 we are hosting a party for potters and friends to celebrate with us... if you are in the area please come and stay for the party!

i feel like a worker bee

it's been a busy week with no signs of slowing down. the last few days have been spent getting ready to fire the ground hog kiln at the NC Pottery Center here in Seagrove. i have been glazing the interiors of pots, while jeff has been finishing some vases and getting them bisqued. the good news is jeff replaced a switch and put new elements in the bisque kiln and it fired in just 6 hours.
we are excited to fire the kiln at the center because we have a lot of pots made that were intended to be salted. jeff also has some big pots that don't fit in our gas kiln...

the one on the right is going in the ground hog, it's about 26" tall... the one on the left is about 35" and is too tall. it will have to wait for a firing in a bigger kiln. saturday is firing day so if you are in the area stop by the pottery center and see what's happening.

it's a nice cool morning and i am heading out to unload the bisque kiln before it gets hot out there. happy thursday to all!

PS: jeff is scheduled to teach a throwing and altering workshop at the NC pottery center on July 15th & 16th, for more info click here.