We had a work day up at the EnergyXchange last week to finish up some of the last details of the new wood kiln, but mainly to harness many hands and a large trailer to move a bunch of pallets.  This kiln is designed to eat entire pallets, whole.

Did I mention that I’ve moved my studio, and there will be a new wood fired kiln in my life?  In the last two weeks I’ve settled in enough to make a few pots for the upcoming first firing.  And of course, one of the first things on the list was to get the wood prepped.

That my friends, is a mountain of pallets.  And since the studio is built at a former landfill, it is also the wood pile for the kiln.

There are a number of questions that one gets asked repeatedly when one is educating the public about one’s woodfired pottery.

“What kind of wood do you use to fire your kiln?”, is a common one.

So the pallets are stacked and we’re getting ready to take her for a test drive in a few weeks.  We’ll see how it goes.

What a busy Spring it has been…and here it is well into Summer already.  It’s going to stay busy for a while but I’ll try to keep you posted.

Last post I had a few pictures from the firing we finshed just before I headed off to the Artisphere Festival.  Currently the kiln is cooling again as Joy and I finally were able to get the planned second firing finished.

The Artisphere Festival, by the way, was a good one.  I made enough sales to call it a moderate financial success, but it was all around a positive experience.  The folks who put on that show really know how to treat the artists well, they raise the bar for all other craft shows.  They even provided entertainers for those of us standing around in our booths all weekend.  From now on, when applying to craft shows I will check to make sure they have a roving dixieland Jazz Band and perhaps even a small troupe of acrobats.

Next up on the list:

• well this weekend is the TRAC Studio Tour of course.
• I’ll soon be sending off some work to a great new online gallery
• tomorrow I’ll start moving my studio down the road a piece where I’ll be starting a new phase and also unload the firing which just may prove to be the last firing in the little wood kiln on Roan Mountain.Perhaps I’ll try to explain a little more about that last one.

A cold, mean wind came down the mountain today. The leaves were still turning and the first snow flakes fell.

October had a busy start, right after my firing I split another one with Joy so we could head into the fall with a good pile of pottery. The Spruce Pine Potters Market was a good weekend with a nice crowd of folks coming to see all 30 or so of us spread out in one room.

We took off for part of a day to a great place we found last year about this time, a nice little hike over the river and through the woods to a water fall. Joy and the dog had their own fun crossing the creeks, but I took the easy way.

Here’s a little peek at the unloading…I held back a few of my favorites this time and I’ll photograph them soon.

Finished loading the kiln last night, ready to get the fire going. I’m headed for a few hours sleep this evening, then up at midnight to get it rolling. Forecast for the train ride is 24 hours of firing after a chilly overnight start. Thankfully a little help from some friends will trickle in, Tracy Dotson will make his first appearance up here in the morning to give me a brief break from the overnight. Apparently he is excited about standing around a wood kiln for a little while. I have received confirmation from Captain Conepack that he will indeed arrive in the evening to help ‘bring it on home’ through the rest of the night. Lots of plates in the kiln this time, as well as a few of the square bottle forms I’ve been working on.

I’ve been thinking a lot of the kiln firing process lately, ever since I fired the little soda “converta-kiln” last week.  Looks like I might get to fire it again next week if there are enough student pots.  The first firing proved informative and I’m ready with a list of small changes to make to improve the results.  Joy wrote a nice summary of the building of the little thing, and soon as my firing here is over I’ll try to add something about the project and the results.

But for now there is a train getting ready to pull out of the station so I better hop on.

It’s been a busy few weeks here on Roan Mountain, what with the firing and the Studio Tour and all. The last firing was very successful with nice pots coming out all around. My plates turned out well and are almost all gone already. More on the firing to come…

I’ve gotten lost in the world of changing my website around, hopefully I’ll be able to reemerge before too long with a snappy new website and blog all in one. You can check in on the progress here.

I’ve added a few pots to my online Etsy Shop, and I’ll be adding a bunch more in just a few days.

Stay tuned for more details!

Top Shelf

You may have noticed an obscure reference to the recent firing here on Roan Mountain. It was firing number 8 and sadly not as successful as the last two. After making some adjustments to the bagwall and firing approach I had two very good firings in a row. Almost all of the really cold areas had disappeared and it felt like I was pulling nice pots out of the kiln left and right.

This time I had some casualties, a few cracks resulting from raw-glazing first attempts and a few cracks from just plain ol’ too thick. Aside from these, the bottom shelf or two on the two outside stacks showed signs of that ol’ terrible cold spot returning. To make matters worse, the whole firing ended up about one cone cooler than I have come to hope for. I’ve learned that the main conepacks tend to sit a very weird little pocket in this kiln, and that cone 9 flat is fine there as long as cone 11 is flat in the very front fireface. Although this firing seemed headed for greatness and high temperatures for a while there, in the end only cone 10 was flat on the fireface with cone 11 hanging tough. In the main packs I had only one cone 9 down and a lot of 8’s just falling. Oh well I thought, at four in the morning it was decided to call it off and see if that would be hot enough.

Before

After

Not quite hot enough. By no means was it a total disaster. Joy shared the kiln load and although she did not fare too well overall, she had a few nice ones come out. I did have a lot of nice ones come out too, some of the flashed surfaces from the last firings were still there but some of the surfaces were just shy of my expectations built up from the hotter pots of the last time round.

For the next firing I think I’ll reverse the small changes I had made in some of the settings and try to get headed back in the right direction.

For now, off to help Shane Mickey with another of his kiln building projects. He’s already got a start on it and it’s not to far away, so in a few days we’ll have it finished and fired and be headin’ home. Then I can get back in the studio and try it all again.