Our Journey So Far

Perfect day for a firing

In August we completed our fifth firing.  Throughout the summer we have been experimenting with clays and glazes and decided to add soda to the last two firings with good results. Note Ron Deaver's stoking door which is made from a metal trash can lid with kaowool wired to the inside with nichrome wire. Over the open door you can see the waste vegetable oil reservoir. As soon as the kiln reaches red heat the step plate burners (see earlier post) can be placed in the two air intakes between the firebox and the ash pit. The kiln can be put in full reduction and the temp will still climb.  Just a note of caution here, you can easily climb too fast and over fire. In one of our first firings we melted cone 12 into a puddle almost before we realized it and ruined some nice pots. No doubt we were somewhere around c14.  Since then we have used WVO sparingly. We find that we can reach c12 in 24 hours on sawmill slabs alone. The first 8 hours are a gentle warm up and the next 16 hours we speed things up but the stoking is still pretty relaxed. When we add soda, we spray about 5 pounds, mixed with 2 gal. of  hot water sprayed in with a regular garden sprayer. The Bourry box is so efficient that we are thinking about another kiln to run completely on WVO.

Below is a storage jar by Philip Wiggs fired in this kiln.

 

This area has so many good potters. It has been great to get folks together for a community firing. Where else can you get together every six weeks or so and talk pots and life for two or three days. 

Pots From First Firing

A New Year In Clay

"It's the bomb"

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Wood and Oil

 

Minding the Fire

Community Firing

The Bobtown Potters sent sparks into the winter sky Saturday evening. The weather is not the only extreme here. From fifty degrees to zero to outside, and from zero to 2,400 degrees, the new kiln exceeded expectations. Bobtown Arts board members Philip Wiggs and Clarence Hayes, along with community potters Ron Deaver, Robbie Teasdale and Bruce Hoefer, withstood extreme cold to feed the firebox for thirty hours, adding the reclaimed waste oil to the wood. Anthony Wolking contributed fifty tea bowls to the 150 pots loaded into the Bourry Box kiln. We are waiting to unload the kiln, now cooling in the arctic air, but an initial peek was joyful.

Broken Pots

The Value of a Broken Pot

I recall that during Walter Hyleck’s pottery classes, he selected pieces from student collections and culled them from the better work. In breaking the pots against the wall, students could see where the pots were too thick or thin or irregular. As a writer who has tossed several novels to get to the one I want to keep, I see the value in the pots that are broken and never sent out into the world. In the attic and in old boxes, the many pages I have written over the years constitute the learning experience that has brought me skill. Our best work requires us to look at our own work with a critical eye. I think I would like to contribute something to the firing this month, maybe a lot of old pages that I can let go off now. Some of the ash of my words can glaze the pots.  I think we are ready to light up the sky at Bobtown.