Back from the two-week stay at Penland, a little tired but mostly unharmed. Another Shane Mickey kiln now resides in Mitchell County, built with the help of several students. I was there to assist Shane and in the two weeks we built a modest sized soda kiln and fired it twice with the work made by students in the class.

The first firing of any kiln is an adventure, and a cross draft soda kiln can be especially tricky. With so many variables to balance, many a first firing turns out more ‘learning experience’ than nice pots. Different clay bodies and slips and glazes, how much reduction and how to read it, unmapped soda zones….

Our first firing was surprisingly successful, with the proper cones down in the proper places, ‘good’ reduction and soda coverage throughout the kiln. We unloaded in the morning and loaded up round two the same evening. We had another good firing the second time, lightened up the reduction just a bit and increased the soda amount which resulted in more flashing of the slips and clays and more hints of the icy gray soda. Both firings lasted only 12-13 hours, credit due to Shane’s design and the experienced firing crew.

We all wish ‘Lucille’ the very best, she’ll have an exciting few weeks. With the bricks still warm, a visiting artist was getting ready to start the third firing right after we unloaded with more firings to follow in the coming weeks.

For anyone waiting patiently for more words on the converted soda kiln….sorry, you’ll have to wait a little longer.  I’m off again starting tomorrow to assist my pal Shane Mickey with a ‘real’ soda kiln to be built with the help of a few students at Penland.  Two weeks from now we will have built the kiln and fired it twice to geta sense of how to make it go, assuming all goes well.   I won’t lie to you and say I’ll post pictures as we build.  But I will try to take the pictures as the kiln goes up, maybe get an update in when I get a day of rest?