Monday, October 5, 2009

Pots!

Well the kiln is all unloaded and ready for another go this weekend! It seems crazy that we will be firing again so soon. With the exception of the front of the first chamber the pots came out quite well. The first chamber was even better than I thought it would be. We ended up losing about a third of our pots from the first chamber, one third will need to be refired as they spent the last half of the firing behind a kiln shelf wall, the last third of pots in the first chamber came out quite well. Frankly I was expecting to lose a majority of the pots from the first chamber, so to only lose a third is quite encouraging.
Here is a selection of pots from the unloading:


Covered pitcher from the third chamber, we oxidized the third chamber hoping to get some hair's fur glaze (which is a black iron glaze with rust colored streaking) from our high iron glazes:
It's certainly different than how it looks in reduction... I like it, though it's not exactly what I was hoping for.



This is one of the survivors from the first chamber, it has a slight kiss, but is nicer for it.


Christy's platters came out well. She is much better than me on continuing testing on different glaze combinations and is coming out with some nice results:


This is one that I threw and Christy decorated, on of my favorites from the firing:

A nice teabox:

A larger bottle vase:

small serving bowl... I've used this decoration before, but never on the rim of a bowl before. I like it... I imagine you'll be seeing this decoration again.


And for those of you who were curious, here is what the first chamber looked like:
It was actually beautiful in a strange kind of way. It looked very old. Not much sellable in the ruble though. Luckly not everything toppled.
Back to work though.... We're working overtime at Windy Ridge getting ready for the next firing. We've already cut wood, and cleaned most of the kiln, and cleaned the pots. There are quite a few refires, but we would still like to make some new pots for the firing. Loading starts Friday.
Joe

4 comments:

Tim Ayers said...

Looking great! is the collaborative bowl inspired by your bowl from weaver st market? i have one of your small jars with that decoration on the small bowl's rim and I got to say it translated very well.

pretty gruesome firebox pic... hope your shelves are ok.

good luck with the back to back firings!

Ron said...

Wow that is pretty gruesome, but glad to hear it's not as bad as it looks. Pots look fab.

Michael Mahan said...

I hate that, but what can you do but move on. That's a nice pot that came out of the rubble, though. Good luck with the next firing.

jim gottuso said...

it's a tragedy but that is a very cool photo of the tragedy... looks like and ancient archeological dig. the one you rescued from the collapse is really beautiful though... like the bowls too.