December/January Update

Oops, sorry guys - I’m a month behind.. So much to blog about, so little time to blog!

I left off before the unloading of our Thanksgiving train kiln firing, and it was an extremely exciting unload. Truly some of my favorite pieces I have made to this day came out of that kiln.

Beautiful surfaces throughout all the stacks, and the variety of colors and textures from the layers of ash blew my mind..shimmery pink veils and rivulets over blues, yellows, and greens where the ash concentrated contrasted by rich orange and reds of the protected dryer areas. This firing changed my perception of what is achievable in wood-firing. I would’ve never imagined such a bright rainbow of colors to come out of a wood kiln. I’m starting to understand what materials play best with the flame and encourage the colorful flashing and palette I’m drawn to — namely, those high in helmer + the XX saggar sig have given me favorable results.

My large vase with the support crown was loaded on the floor by the door of the side-stoke firebox and was half-submerged in coals for the tail-end of the firing. I was thrilled with the areas of crusty unmelted ash juxtaposed with pristine, sparkling blues. It’s wild to me how much this piece transformed and grew in complexity with its time in the kiln.

I put one mug I made with Casey’s clay in that firing, lined with our studio green celadon, and was blown away when it came out of the kiln.

The button tests with wild clays/materials gave me some good information. I am particularly interested in testing more of “BR3” — what I believe to be volcanic ash collected along Bottle Rock Road — as a flux substitute. At this point I have so many raw materials to work with (have collected even more since this firing, hahaha), and haven’t done much actual processing or glaze/claybody formulation with them. And I’m not sure when I’ll get around to that. Just been so focused on making work, selling it, buying more clay/kiln space with that money, and then making more. But, the information I got from my tiles and line blend with the stoneware recipe I’m testing + the Bottle Rock Road “ditch clay” (“BRD”) was useful. I plan to soon make a batch of the final recipe I’ve decided on, and wedge some of it up with ~1/3 part of the wild clay. I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface with this testing, mostly because I have had to spend most of my studio time making, and clay formulation/wild material processing is so tedious and a gamble of time. But regardless I enjoy the process and this was cool information.

Tiny teapots were the theme of this firing. Mine turned out wonderfully as a sculptural piece, but gets a 0/10 for functionality. Nevertheless, it was still invited to the epic tiny tea party.

Besides the tiny tea party, we had some great resident bonding festivities in December, including a lovely themed Sound of Music movie night organized by Syd and a Christmas brunch at Scott’s where we did secret Santa and were all gifted new work gloves by Casey! A gorgeous Christmas tree emerged in the loft that same day, adorned with little personalized stockings knitted by Syd (and work gloves).

The best Christmas gift was my mom coming to visit with her new puppy, Mindy. I was so grateful my mom made the trip up and to spend some time with her. It was terrible weather the week she was here, but we stayed warm inside, cooking, lounging, playing with Mindy, and eating a lot of cookies.

Since arriving at Cobb, I’ve been almost entirely focused on making functional, sellable work and was itching to make something purely sculptural again, and wanted to make something big for the anagama firing in a month. I wasn’t sure where to start with the forms besides them somehow supporting and complimenting the piece I brought with me that I made this summer. Studying that piece one night, I noticed how the shadows mirrored some of the rock formations I’d been looking to for visual research and were interesting silhouettes on their own. I started the new pieces with slabs that fit around the footprint of the existing form, and looked to photos of the form’s shadow for inspiration and guidance as I coiled up the new ones. ~6” into coiling them, a segment fell off when I was moving a board, which sucked in the moment, but became insignificant as these forms grew over the next few weeks. As they grew, I began seeing them as slot canyons with hidden caves and tunnel systems, and they diverged from supports for the existing piece into worlds of their own.

I also made another batch of slip-cast and carved cups, which are still quite tedious to make — the mold is super worn and continues to degrade (I think I’m retiring it), and I like to make each one unique. I enjoyed adding some little handles on a few, too. I do want to make more cast/altered work, but it’s due time for me to make a new mold. Hopefully in February I will get around to that. And I finished another thrown and altered vase.

In between making for the anagama, Casey and I fired a soda with mostly his work but a couple of my pieces that didn’t make it into the Thanksgiving train. Unfortunately lost two cups in the loading, but luckily they were slip-cast ones. Ah pottery.

It was really nice working 1-on-1 with Casey and getting to observe his loading process so closely. And we had a great time goofin’ as always.

This soap dish was a fun surprise from that firing; I put it in the chimney. Not sure why it got that cool rain-spotting effect, but I’m here for it. Also was thrilled by the three thrown/altered short cups I put in there. Each one turned out super unique and got great flashing and/or carbon trapping. They’re nice vessels too; I plan to make more of that form.

I finished my big sculptures just in time on the first day of loading, literally 3 hours before they were loaded into the kiln. I worked until the last possible minute to get them as tall as I could (~45” for the largest one). Big lessons were learned - I really don’t like being rushed on big work (or any work for that matter), and being perceived as I make intuitive pieces is extremely challenging for me. The studio was bustling with the chaos of loading the two kilns, lots of new faces coming and going through the space as I struggled to find ends to the forms. I also hated not being able to help out during the first day of loading (even though we had SO many hands, it’s a terrible feeling, not being able to contribute). So I will not be subjecting myself to that torture in any future firings.

Nonetheless, I finished them, and with Scott’s help, seamlessly slid them into the kiln. They were loaded on either side of the middle side stoke port, with the original form nestled in the larger one. I am a bit concerned about that form slumping without supports for the precarious middle part, but Scott assured me that it would probably be buried in/supported by the coal bed. We shall see.

The sculptures are a gamble in and of themselves. I wasn’t worried about them going in green and still wet, since the bottoms had been slowly drying for almost a month, and because we candle the Anagama for so long, they weren’t at any risk for blowing up from moisture. But, I sculpted them with two different clays (50% my paper clay all the way, but 50% “Standard 420 Sculpture Clay” for the first ~12”, and the rest with 50% “East Bay Clay Helmer Wood” reclaim). I blended the mixes over a few inches of coils, and they should be okay since it’s 50% the same clay all the way, but again, we shall see. Either way, the larger one is the biggest piece I’ve made to date!

I was happy to get those bad boys in the kiln so I could be present during the second loading day. I was honored to be entrusted with the task of loading the chimney of the Anagama — which ended up being quite disastrous (basically, two bricks bad. three bricks good!) — but I got it done in the end. My legs didn’t wake up for a few hours, though, and my body was feeling the repercussions of that cramped space for days. The experience was worth it, though! Thankful for Syd and Casey for handing me pots and wadding and keeping me sane while having to re-do the stack… twice.

Besides some chimney chaos and the expected couple of losses amongst a thousand-something pieces, the loading of both kilns went very smoothly. Many hands made very light work, and the energy of the workshop participants was overwhelmingly positive and calm. The dogs definitely help cultivate that atmosphere.

I can’t put into words how thrilled and lucky I felt for Tara Wilson to be here! She came as a guest artist to lead the train firing. I’ve admired Tara’s work for years, and she is a big reason I became interested in wood firing. Getting to know her a little and hear more about her process was amazing. She has a really unique approach to wadding where she makes press molds with actual shells then fills them with a plaster-whiting mixture to then use as substitutes to real shells in the firing. I’d never seen this method before and couldn’t believe how similar (and better, tbh) the flashing marks were to real shells.

The way she loaded the train kiln was very different than our typical way — instead of having one side stoke port by the door, Tara structured the stack around two smaller port holes, and added a firebox on the side of the front of the kiln for the beginning of the firing, in addition to the main one at the front. I wasn’t present during the beginning of the train firing, so I missed out on the specifics of that additional firebox. But the extra side stoke ports made for a really active and challenging firing compared to the slow and steady door-stacking method we’re used to. More on that later!

Tara is based in Helena, so it was cool talking to her about Montana things, too. I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing her kilns and studio the next time I’m home for a bit. Besides being an incredible artist and potter, Tara’s an awesome human. I really appreciated her grounding energy and humor. Plus, she loves the outdoors and is a badass mountain biker, and I had fun running my 10 mile loop around Boggs with her and Casey on bikes twice during the firing.

I’ve got much more to share about the Anagama/Train firing and the past few weeks, so I’ve decided to end this blog here and post a part two in a few days! Stay tuned (: