workshop part two with Sabine Nemet’s soda and wood-fired kiln

to continue, I didn’t have much to do with the packing of Sabine’s smaller fast-fire kiln, our teams stuck with the job they started with as both had a plan and it’s much easier for the teams to keep working on a task which requires a lot of forethought and head scratching.

therefore I also don’t have many pictures of the pack, and not of the firing either.

we were soda spraying after Nic’s Mongrel was all clammed up and finished.

here’s Sabine demonstrating. the kiln is at least 12ooC, but it cools after a spraying session and has to be stoked up to temperature again.

one person had the hot and responsible job of taking out the bungs, not dropping or breaking them, and putting them back while another sprayed. spraying being the fun thing, trying to aim it at the pots you can see glowing inside, not the props or shelves.

Nick Marsh was especially vocal about it.

I don’t think I did any firing on Sabine’s kiln until the last push when she and I stoked and had the pyro reading 1274C, pretty hot! cone 11 over all round.

On Staurday morning, although tired and hungover from the fantastic party round the log fire the night before (Northumbrian pipes, guitars and singers, barbecue, hot tub for the kids) we were panting to open up the kiln, which was of course really a bit too hot.

Ben was so keen he nearly started dismantling the kiln instead of the wicket.

a very well cooked feast

too many tall people to get a look in …

everything had great colour, texture, many hopefuls in there, Mel’s teapots

mine and Mary’s

another of Mary’s

we passed them out in a chain to the grass. people wouldn’t let go of their own pieces and had to be hauled back to the line.

me and Mary. the pots were hot!

Sabine thought the firing much darker and with different colours from her usual results.

probably because there were many different oxides, slips, and clays in people’s pots. but also it was a good firing in terms of reaching temperature. also the amount of reduction was a surprise, given that sabine felt she and I were getting oxidising at the end.

I was certainly very pleased with all four of my pieces

I used Nic’s celadon glaze on two pieces, with no slip, so the iron rich clay produced dark colours and runny glaze.

this a particularly spectacular pot, ash deposit made mossy green marks on its shoulders.

this was covered in Sabine’s yellow slip, normally a yellow ochre colour with black mottling from the soda, but perhaps my clay had more iron in it.

this was my usual iron oxide, with the crackle slip over it, and the chun glaze. absolutely nothing like the results from my kiln. the chun mostly ran off I think.

next post will be about our visit to Dartmoor, then next week I go back to pick up my pots from Nic’s kiln, and I am hoping to gather a few photos of the opening. meanwhile, a teaser, Ben sent me photos of six pieces on friday.

what a rich and complex surface.