Back from a week long excursion with Captain Conepack to build another Shane Mickey kiln. I’ve worked with Shane for the past few years, helping him build kilns in I think three states now. I’ve learned a lot from him about design theory and the practicalities of building kilns, and we tend to ramble on endlessly about minute kiln design tidbits and firing theory. Shane likes to work hard and fast, but he is also always good for a laugh.

I snapped a few pictures of the kiln as it went up. This one was a catenary arch wood kiln, built for a great guy up in Culpepper, VA. It has a generous firebox and stacking chamber and of course the “Mickey” flanged door which I’ve adopted for my kiln as well. We finished up in about six days, but the initial firing is a few months away yet.

Back at home, I found all of my irons still in all of the fires, which is to say that all of the different that’s are still lined up and awaiting their turn. In the meantime, back to the studio to get making pottery again, and back over to Joy Tanner Pottery for a round two firing of the little converted electric soda kiln. The test firing gave us good directions to head in to improve the results, so we made a few changes and had at it again. We’ll find out soon if we moved far enough in the right direction!

The summer is flying by while I run here and there on all the various projects.  Most of them are moving along slowly, but at least they’re moving.   One of  the websites is nearly complete,  the plans for the reduction kiln are almost Final Plans,  we finished up the building of the little  “test” soda kiln and got the first firing out of the way,  found time to make a few pots and try to get the rust out, and now I’m off to help my pal build a wood kiln up in Virginia.  Another trip with Captain Conepack himself, his tools haven’t even dried off yet from his last project so I know he’ll be in good form for building.  You can see some photos of the latest Mickey Kiln here.

I put together a few pictures of converting the electric kiln into a gas fired soda kiln, you can read that here.

We’ll make a few adjustments for the next firing, try to move the heat around a little more with target bricks and increase the amount of reduction too.  The kiln made it to temperature so now we just need to fine tune the details that make all the difference.

Hard to believe that we’re well into the summer season. Settling back in after the Studio Tour, found the blueberries coming along nicely up here on the mountain. The traffic trickled in all weekend, with many of the visitors being folks with whom we were already acquainted. It’s always great to see the rare breed who make repeated trips out to see the pottery. I had five examples of a new form I had made in the last firing and all five went home with someone, it was nice to see that others liked the new vase as much as I had hoped they might.

I hope to get back into the studio before too long, but as usual there is a long list of catch up to do which is overwhelming the studio demands at the moment. The next few weeks will bring some kiln building projects, as well as an exciting and ceramic related website project…stay tuned for more details.

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.