Well, after many months of being away from the computer and taking care of a lot of personal things, I finally finished the 9th and last firing of my kiln. It was without a doubt the best one yet; some very interesting results and some very successful experiments with obsidian and other glasses in the pots. Two of my friends have offered me space on their property to build my next kiln, I believe I will take them both up on it and build two different kilns that will be modifications of the last one.....sounds like a busy summer, eh!?

new pots

The fire went pretty good this time around, lots of great tea bowls and tumblers, and a few juicy tea pots that just keep making me laugh. This time we used cedar up until around 1800 degrees F then moved to fir and oak with a bit of cherry, elderberry, hawthorne, yew, alder, and apple. More pics and thoughts as i finish investigating the pieces. As always you can click on any image and it will magnify itself.

February '09 firing

72 hours of burning 2 cords of wood (a mix of oak, yew, cedar, and fir) 2 days of sleeping and eating afterwards, and I was unpacking some pretty interesting looking pots. I feel like the effects work better with the forms this time around; now I'm not sure yet if that's because the forms have morphed a bit, or if it's because the firing has improved (this being the 5th firing,) or a combination of the two........ probably the latter, regardless, I'm having a great time cleaning and investigating each one. I think next time I'll seal out oxygen while it cools and go for the more matte surfaces, for pleasure and to see more about what the cedar ash can do.
The above pics are a few pots I'm really diggin' for the moment and the chimney at fire-off.

Tea Bowl Heaven

The 1st firing of the eunoiagama ( an anagama style wood fire kiln ) was a total success; 55 hrs of firing, 55 hrs of cooling, 2.5 cords of wood and 98% of the pieces are fantastic; who says you can't fire a wet kiln???

eunoia: the shortest word in the english language containing all the vowels; definition: beautiful thinking.

A bit of info for those who don't know wood fire ceramics.....the only glazed surface is inside the tea bowls and just around the upper lip; everything else was left raw clay and are the effects of the flame and fire interacting with minerals in the clay. Temperatuers hot enough to melt all the ash from the fire are achieved in the later part of the fire.