Jane Wheeler's Blog 2014 August

wood-firing in Devon part four – the big reveal

Posted jane -->on 31st Aug 2014

at last, here they are, the ones we were being so careful not to hit with firewood or push the ember bed into. and all the rest behind.

the thing to do is to put them all out roughly in the same order and placing as they were in the firing, so that you can see what happened where in the kiln. it’s very useful to have a large gravelled drive for this.

straight away I can see from Pete’s photos (I couldn’t be there) that all mine are darker than the rest. that’s because I didn’t do what I was told and make pots from a high firing off-white stoneware clay like St Thomas’s white, I took pots from my production over the past year, which have mostly been made from buff bodies with higher iron content. even the pizza oven building clay I used for the two extra large bottles has fired pretty dark, which it doesn’t do in the gas kiln, normally it’s a light grey.

the other thing I didn’t do was to glaze them, much. this big bottle in the centre is the one which had black iron oxide painted on it, which I thought might just evaporate off – or the ash would form a glaze over it. but there is not enough ash to do that except at the front or under a stokehole. the bowl had black oxide too. on the top right there’s a smaller bottle which was made in the pink grogged stoneware, so I expected that to come out pretty cooked.

this one is like a rich dark christmas pudding. the specks of iron in the lavafleck clay that I mixed with crank for this body have melted and formed bigger metallic spots on the surface. it looks like it got some ash too.

I think this one must have been the pink grogged stoneware too. not as black as Nic’s Meeth clay, a red devon ball clay local to him.

here’s one I glazed, with a celadon.

in the very foreground are two of my bottles which were in the less hot part of the kiln, nearer the back, with lovely flame-licked rusty colours. behind Poppy the springer are two of Nic’s big flasks, and on those you can see what happens when a lot of ash meets glaze. I think this will be a shino, a thick white-ish glaze. Carin’s coiled bottle is a gorgeous combination of rusty clay colour and celadon, and you can see one of Chris’s shell-studded glazed bottles too. he brought his own glazes, and used them rather than Nic and Sabina’s. I would love to try out my chun another time, if I could find room for it.

this must be the bottle that was on its back under the side stokehole. plastered with blackened ash and cinder. the back is just rich brown clay. lightly scarred with shells – it was supported on them.

you can see it on the left in this photo, a dribble of ash creeping around its shoulder. the smaller bottle on the right is the one made in the pink grogged clay, with shino poured down one side. by contrast the two smaller whitish pots have a surface layer of porcelain, and have remained pretty dry but extra cooked dry.

a group photo of most of my pots from the firing, (thank you Pete Pears for taking these and posting them on facebook) a lot of naked clay roasted to rusty black, and some with liberal ash dribbles. if I had glazed them with shino they might have been lighter green, but I’m not sure, must ask Nic about that. I expect I will need to do a lot of cleaning wads off with my Drexel drill.

saving the best photo for last – it might not be the best pot, but it certainly makes a dramatic photo, all the better for the understated pinks greens and greys of Nic’s platter behind. I want to do this again next year, use more glaze, and be more precise about what I’m doing with it. now I have to wait nearly three weeks until I can actually see the pots.

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wood-firing in Devon part 3 – the big kiln

Posted jane -->on 30th Aug 2014

packing this kiln took us four days. perhaps the very back part was the slowest, as it had to be packed tightly to stop the heat escaping too quickly.

we were fortified by Sabine’s marvellous meals

every prop, shelf and pot had to be separated by wads of clay and alumina, Tim is seen licking these to make them stick to the pots in the top photo.

some were made into sandwiches with scallop shells – the lime in the shell stopes them sticking – for pots to rest on sideways.

like this one of mine, which is lying right under a stoke hole. if it doesn’t break, it will end up with an amazing coating of ash on its upper side.

finding pots the same size to fit under the shelves was a headache. normally a potter makes sizes to fit the props and shelves, but we all brought pots of completely different sizes and shapes. there’s a listening pod of mine in the top right, and on the left covered in black iron oxide, is one of my really huge bottles, next to a bottle of Chris’s, then another tall bottle of mine, in red clay with shino poured on it, which I am hoping has come out black and the glaze a metallic sheen.

Pete and Chris did the last part of the packing, the very large cylinder is Pete’s.

another layer, not quite the last

this lot will get the brunt of the ember bed

and the other side

on the afternoon of the fourth day the wicket was bricked up, leaving two stoke holes, some mouse holes for air, and a big spy hole, and small fires were lit outside the stoke holes to lead the heat into the kiln gradually.

Chris, Pete, Tim, and Carin unloading wood. this is pine, the small section and barked trimmings from the saw mill. almost impossible to get hold of these days, most saw mills make their waste into wood pellets for biomass energy.

overnight the fires were moved into the stokeholes. Tim and I had the “graveyard shift” two am to six am. the temperature went down to three degrees centigrade and we were very cold. at this point very little heat was given out by the kiln.

the next morning the next shift were feeding the long wood into the front stoke holes to build up the ember bed in the firebox. caution had to be taken, flinging it in violently would break those pots at the front, or at least push them over. as the ember bed built up, stoking became a very hot job which had to be done quickly but with great care.

smoke at the chimney

another night shift, more comfortable this time as the heat built up …

Tilda the kiln dog, attached during my shift to make sure she didn’t wander off into the alpaca paddock .. at least she was warmer than in the tent.

looking to see if cone nine had gone over in the front (that’s 1230C or so)

stoking at the side doors as well as the front

things beginning to get exciting now, on the third day.

Nic checking cones at the back, using the light reflected by an iron bar in the heat

on the fourth day, using up that ember bed as rocket fuel, the mouse holes opened to let oxygen in.

Nic side-stoking. the beams above have to be sprayed with a hose to stop them catching alight.

now the temperature is up Nic throws hardwood ash into the front. pine ash gives khaki greens; hard wood ash is prettier.

flame at the chimney

Chris side stoking – you need to be tall …

a special breakfast, just what you need after nights stoking … Sabine’s birthday too …

at last, the cones have gone over in the back, it’s time to clam up, cooling in reduction.

all done, now for the party!

just a taste – the kiln was opened today, but I couldn’t be there …

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women woodfirers

Posted jane -->on 28th Aug 2014

Sabine Nemet is a very busy woman. she makes lovely domestic pots, soda wood-fired in a kiln she built herself. but as well as that, she has a ten-year old daughter, Elsa, with her partner Nic Collins, she grows vegetables, she teaches, and she cooks and runs the family home – (of course Nic helps too). she makes gorgeous sour-dough bread, and she caters for the groups that the couple host for their workshops, several times a year, producing delicious meals.

trained in Germany, Sabine’s work ethic must come from her early years in East Germany, where life was serious and tough, material things were scarce, but women and men had absolutely equal education and job opportunities.

I think this is the first piece I bought from her, a long platter

with lots of nice crystalline green and soda spots hazing the imprinted marks. I very much like these repeated marks, which she impresses and fills with different glazes. this platter is great for serving anything you need to lay out flat, for instance, wafer thin slices of jamon serrano.

a big jar that I keep flour in.

I have four of these little porcelain bowls.

this bottle is lighter than you would think. potters in Germany are taught to throw in a very disciplined way, able to produce the same shape from the same weight of clay over and over.

although throwing the pots doesn’t need especial strength, just skill, patience and a good eye, plus the main thing, a real knowledge of what makes a good pot, strength is needed for the rest of a potter’s work – handling 25 kilo bags of materials, loading shelves into the kiln, lifting, cutting and carrying a lot of wood, building and rebuilding kilns. Sabine seems to be a strong person inside and out. she used to kick-box!

another woman woodfirer whose work I collect and use is Susanne Lukacs-Ringel.

she works on her own in Germany, firing an anagama, and a salt kiln. mostly she sells in markets, on the continent and here; you can usually find her at Art in Clay at Hatfield, and at Rufford for Earth and Fire. she works incredibly hard, and her pieces are beautiful, mostly tableware and sculptural handbuilt vessels. she does a lot in porcelain – these are more delicate than Sabine’s – and in stoneware. I use her plates all the time, and her porcelain cups I take a bit more care with. they make lovely presents too. buying wares from both these potters can be addictive, so some of my purchases go to friends and family.

another continental woman woodfirer I admire is Linda de Nil. I have this porcelain bowl and some beakers, but most of her work is more robust than this, and she throws gritty rough clays into large pieces.

the only English woman wood-firer I know is Pat Southwood in Norfolk; she fires a small fast fire wood kiln, and makes Japanese influenced pieces, using local materials as much as possible. there’s Patricia Shone, and Hannah McAndrew, who fires earthenware with wood, in Scotland and Micki Schloessingk who makes salt-glazed wood-fired pots in the Gower Peninsula.

it’s a tough life, being a potter, and to wood-fire is financially and physically even harder. you have to do it for the love of the thing. it has its rewards – the pots are richer and more complex – but most potters – here and in Europe – find it easier and simpler to use gas, or oil, or even electricity. to find women incorporating it into already busy lives is very special.

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wood-firing in Devon part two – being there

Posted jane -->on 27th Aug 2014

the Barn Pottery is just outside Moretonhampstead, in a little valley, north Dartmoor, and it’s surrounded by beautiful views and walks. mostly quite steep walks. I used to find I would feel fitter after a week there crewing for Nic, but this time I didn’t have time – or energy – for much walking,

just up the lane and down the lane a short way, narrow lanes walled and filled with greenery, a lot of fern and bracken especially.

oak, sycamore, alder, horse chestnut, hazels – a tree-ed landscape. especially stunning is the drive from Exeter, if you take the non-heavy vehicles road, which takes you down into wooded valleys, up onto rounded grassy hilltops, and along roads that overhang rivers, lined with trees.

my big tent, a ditch in front, and the stream on the left, that borders Nic and Sabine’s little field

their house is a small barn that Nic started to convert as he moved in; it’s gradually been changed over the years, so that instead of the workshop being downstairs, there’s now a living room, and an upstairs bathroom, and the workshop is in a separate cob building (cob is mud and straw, a traditional material supported by a wood frame) with student/visitor accommodation above that. their deerhound puppy Bryn

and old Rhodey the lurcher

enjoy their outdoor life, spreading themselves outside in the sun, curling up in sheltered spots in inclement weather, and joining the family around the fire indoors or out.

if you visit you will find pots everywhere; Nic uses his drive as a showroom, and Sabine’s domestic wares snuggle up with his rugged pieces.

Nic is well known for Throwing Large and his big, and even huge, jars stand about everywhere

but he also makes quieter work, small bowls with leaves imprinted into slip (an old Devon decorative technique)

and jugs and mugs with these lovely blackbird and blackberry sprigs

recently branching out into large tiles using the same sprigs.

nothing is precious here, and Nic and Sabine taught me that using beautiful handmade pots everyday in the kitchen and on the table is a life-enhancing thing to do. the first time I went they had a set of 6 earthenware plates by Clive Bowen, with his glowing yellowy translucent ochre glaze, not thrown but pressed, thick with a shallow curve. there are two left now.

perhaps a giant paella? but this one is destined to live outside on a specially made oak stand in Suffolk ….

you can see more of Nic and his work here and Sabine here

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wood-firing in Devon part one

Posted jane -->on 26th Aug 2014

I’ve just been on a week-long workshop in Devon, north Dartmoor, packing and firing two kilns with wood, one Sabine Nemet’s fast fire Olsen with soda, and the other Nic Collins’ big groundhog which he fires for about eighty hours. there were six of us and we camped in Nic and Sabine’s little field. except for one of us, Pete, who prefers his comforts to camping. I feel the same way, after a week of sleeping with two hot water bottles, socks on, and a thick blanket wrapped round my supposedly okay for zero temperatures sleeping bag.

my tent is quite palatial, with much more room than a camper van – you can stand up in it, and it has a big porch area which extends into an awning. if it hadn’t been so cold at night, and I had had the forethought to bring a lantern, you could have called it glamping. Tilda’s car kennel went into the porch with a big blanket over it at night to keep her warm.

I chose the far corner of the field and faced into a big clump of lovely poisonous hemlock which was weird, as I wrote about it a couple of months ago without every having seen it. it is very tall, and less sculptural and lighter in colour than hogweed.

Nic has made a kind of open fronted big tent around or under which we had lunch depending on the weather. mostly under, in fact. in the evenings he lit a charcoal fire in an old lorry wheel, and we sat round it under canvas. they have a sort of rec room upstairs above the workshop with sofas, a fridge, a cooker, reference library and music centre, and the shower, but even with the weather as it was, it’s nicer to be outside.

glazing and packing were the first priorities, needing to be done as quickly as possible, but also needing finesse and patience. it took three days to pack the big groundhog, but the fast fire was ready to go on Monday morning.

to pack the back you actually need to get into the kiln. everything needs non-stick wads of clay and alumina to stand on, to prevent it being welded by ash and soda to the shelves.

by contrast my glaze firings are child’s play.

lunches were liberal and delicious. Sabine makes her own bread too, and enjoys catering for large numbers.

after lunch on Monday the fast fire kiln was lit and gradually got up to temperature. we worked in teams of two and stoked for shifts of four hours; my and Tim Bartell’s first shift was six am to 10 am on Tuesday.

by tuesday afternoon the temp was up to twelve hundred and sixty or so (according to the pyro, though this later proved to be a big under-estimate) and we started to apply the soda. it is soda bicarb mixed with water and heated to produce a liquid which can be squirted into spy-holes deliberately packed into the bricking up of the wicket.

it makes a speckled glaze which mostly gets onto those pieces directly in the way of the stream, but the residue influences the glazes on the rest of the firing.

living outside suits miss T, though she had to be tied up quite a bit when I was busy, as there are alpacas in the field next door, very intriguing for a dog that thinks she is a deerhound. Bryn the puppy is a deerhound, so there is a little worry there too.

the firing was finished late on Tuesday; the kiln clammed up, and we had to wait until Saturday to open it. but there was plenty else going on with the big kiln to fire.

Saturday morning and bated breath as Chris started to free the top bricks …. we made a human chain passing the bricks around to Sabine to stack.

some wonderful results, especially Chris’s big bottles with ash glazes. luce’s little teapot was a favourite. my bowl I didn’t feel was really right for soda-firing, but I got three bottles out which I like, especially this one.

the ash and the little bit of soda it got have made some nice green crystals and the runs of the glaze work very well with the clematis stem impressions. wood-firing is a different aesthetic from gas stoneware, it is richer and more complex.

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the leaves of summer

Posted jane -->on 11th Aug 2014

beautiful evening skies; it’s been a warm summer and every evening has offered new versions of familiar views.

harvest is not over yet, and some barley crops have been damaged by the remains of Bertha, the ex-hurricane that just tore through here.

but in between making pots I have done some de- and re-construction, and some dyeing

a friend gave me a very nice John Smedley New Zealand merino large mens striped sweater he had grabbed in a sale and never worn. on digging around in my drawer I found another merino sweater I had hardly worn, a soft blue grey marl women’s one from Saltwater. I cut straight down the front of the men’s sweater with my big scissors, cut front bands from the women’s sweater’s sleeves, and made buttonholes. then I used the remains of the sleeves for pockets. there was then the body of the women’s sweater left – ah – a big hood …..

with another band piece from the sleeves to bind the edges and provide a space for more buttons to control this large baggy thing on the back. into the dyebath in a bundle with field maple and dogwood leaves dipped in an iron and vinegar solution …… a great conversion and perhaps a present for my friend’s wife, who is a very very old friend of mine.

this dress I made at the back end of july, from silky merino jersey, stitched with white merino 2/30’s yarn. I sloppily pleated it and stitched the pleats through with cotton for shibori, and put it in the dyebath with the cardigan bundle and some very ancient eucalyptus leaves that had been sitting outside on the branches brought to me this winter. they don’t have much colour in them at the best of times, but I added a small bag of florists eucalyptus leaves which had gone mouldy and didn’t look very promising, and some of my usual scrap iron bits. the photo is misleading, it’s all grey and greenish

like this. the heated in pleating of the tie dye of course helps to make it a more interesting shape. it has raw edges in the trim round neck and armholes, and around the pockets … it’s a little bit wild child.

this linen and cashmere knit top had been living in a jar of vinegar and water with copper wire, but I think it might have been copper-coloured wire, as this doesn’t look like the effects of copper. it stank when I got it out, so I dyed it in a bundle with rose leaves; the smell didn’t go until it had been hanging up in the semi-open air of my kiln shed for a few weeks.

I’m very pleased with the result – just a suggestion of leaf dye, and a rather glamorous garment. the pearls were not affected at all by any of the processes.

another two cardigans have been cannibalised by my assistant Sue Harper.

one had a scarf attached with sequins knitted in, and that has become the hood, while other parts of it made the base cardie into a longer flared shape

the bundling served to pull the whole together rather than showcase the leaf printing, so it’s very subtle

some field maple leaf prints.

I have one new cashmere cardigan that I’ve dyed recently

it’s really more of a jacket than a cardigan. I used rose leaves, mainly off my banksii climbing rose,

and the dyepot had new holme oak leaves – which produce a strong purple with the scrap iron.

now I have to wait for more cardigans to arrive – hellishly slow this summer – and I have to make more dresses for the tie-dyeing ..

and so eventually I will get my indigo into a vat … and have blue paws again.

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heroic pots

Posted jane -->on 11th Aug 2014

for the last few weeks or so i have been slowly making a series of pots of heroic size (for me, anyway), partly for an installation but not an installation that Rowntree Clark are going to show at London Art Fair in the RCA in September. Ed Clark wants six big bottles ….

then also I like them best of all my work ..

and this week I’m off to Devon with a car full of pots, dogs and camping gear to take part in Nic Collins and Sabine Nemet’s wood-firing workshop for which they say bring at least 30 pots but more if you can.

well I will just bring however many bisc-fired pots I can get in the car.

including at least three of these

some of the pots will be soda and wood fired in Sabine’s fast fire kiln

and some will be exposed to the perils of Nic’s groundhog kiln

for a four day firing

with sticky ash piling up and melting all around them and on them

and flames twisting and flickering around them

leaving flashing marks.

I’ll also be taking a couple of bigger bowls, some smaller ones, two of the really gigantic bottles I made last autumn,

and as many of the remaining middle-sized bottles and flasks I made in March, and a couple of those listening pods with some smaller bisc pieces that have been left over in the past to fill up the spaces.

it will make a nice break in the cycle of chun glazed pieces which dominate my shed at the moment, and maybe when i get back there will be some runner beans ready to eat.

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