Firing Log

The second podcast is finally complete and well worth a listen. Settle in for a fascinating discussion after which you may wish to give yourself some quality time with google as well as the links below. Download episode two directly, or through iTunes (mp3, 55mb, 60:00 min).

Image courtesy of Arthur Rosser.

Steve Harrison is a potter from Australia with decades of woodfire experience under his belt, plus an obvious love and ability for the geological sciences as applied to ceramics. To understand the breadth of his experience, take a peek at his CV, or consider that he is currently firing work in a kiln he built himself out of bricks that he made from local materials; the pottery fired in the kiln is made of clay he collects locally, glazed with materials he collects locally, and fired with wood grown locally.

photo gallery of Steve Harrison’s work, bricks, and kilns. Photo courtesy Michael Bradfield.

His work is shown (and available for sale) at the Legge Gallery in Sydney Australia. During the course of the podcast, Steve discusses his current show “Dirty Little Secrets” and how he developed the clay body used to create these examples of black-bodied ware (as well the white porcelain work represented in a prior show “From the Ground Up“). His recent work is influenced by the way “perfection” has been devalued by modern manufacturing techniques. You can read more in an article he wrote entitled: Perfect Is the New Junk (pdf, © Steve Harrison, used here with permission).

Steve’s kiln building/rock glaze books are available directly from him. Additional photos of his studio, kilns, and work can be seen on his Sidestoke page. Lastly after talking with Steve, I had much to google. Here are some of the more interesting things I picked up:

• Steve has an article in Ceramic Review, Issue #222, entitled: From the Ground Up.
• Porcelain Spy: Père d’Entrecolles. Read translations of his actual letters or a summary written by the NBH (Hungarian Spies) entitled: Pioneers of Industrial Espionage. (as an aside, the entire NBH site is rather interesting, even if a bit chilling).
• Porcelain requires Baitunze (also spelled petuntse, petunse, baidunzi, and likely more).
• Picture of “treacherous” bauxite pebbles (scroll down for a picture of a hand full of them).

I think you will find that Steve’s interview, aside from being interesting and entertaining (Steve has a great sense of humor), will foment a storm of ideas. Enjoy.

I managed to get through Monday without any peeking. Really, the kiln is much too hot but the temptation is strong. To take my mind off things, I decided to build a paper kiln. I’ve been reading about these since college (15 years now) and I’ve always wanted to try one. Sunday night when I got home, there was a Sunday paper on my doorstep. It was a sign. I don’t subscribe.

Now, I also had a hole from getting dirt for the top of the kiln. Given a hole, a free paper, and a spike-pod piece that had been sitting around for a couple years because the tip of the spike got broken somehow, I decided Monday was the perfect day and this was the perfect project. It would give me something to open today and thus help me get through two days of the cool down period (ideally, at least ten days).

Let’s start with the hole:

I threw in some damp wood. This turned out to be a mistake because I couldn’t get it to light. What I needed was some thin kindling underneath the bricks that make up the floor — there is an air inlet underneath the top layer. I should have filled that with easily burned wood. As it is, I had to resort to the raku burner to get the thing going.

Then I filled it in with some millends. The millends are fairly damp too — they aren’t kiln dried, but being cedar, once they get going they burn like the devil:

Then I piled up more wood over top. They say that early kilns were simple pits with shards placed over top to help hold in heat. I don’t have any appropriate shards (I have lots of shards, but when I smash up stuff, I smash it into little bits), but I hoped the paper/slip wrap would function similarly. As it turns out, one Sunday paper isn’t quite enough to make a nice thick shell — it was only a double layer at the bottom and when things got going, it ripped:

Mixed up some slip (twice, needed 3x this amount):

Grabbed the paper:

And pasted it up, threw dirt on for good measure. Dirt is the cheapest most abundant refractory around. Great stuff:

I threw some hot coals down there and started waiting. Although it looks like they caught, when I’d pull them out the smoke would go away, so the smoke was from the wood I threw into the air inlet, not from the kiln wood:

To make a long and rain soaked story short, I eventually got it lit. But then it smoked like crazy — thick green smoke — the kind that looks like a liquid. The smoke was was bothering me a lot and although I knew speeding things along would damage the unbisqed pot, I was mostly interested in seeing some fire so I forged ahead anyway. I fanned the flames and indeed, heard some ominous pops from the kiln. At last it really took off and boy, what a sight:

Notice the cat in the middle to lower left. The kiln’s cats LOVE fire! Click the pic for large version:

Today, I retreived the pot. When I got to the pit kiln, I saw shimmering heat from the sides of the dirt walls. That surprised me … till I realized it was a shimmer shadow from the anagama chimney. I’ve never been much for pit fire and this piece hasn’t convinced me there’s anything there for me to do. Here’s the rather bland piece:

But then I turned it over. There’s glaze on the foot! Honest to goodness glass! I cursed a bit in a surprised and happy fashion. As arrogant as it sounds, I thought to myself, “if I can fire a hole in the ground to a glass finish, I can fire anything.”

Clicking on the following pictures opens a large view:

You can see the damage from pushing the fire, but so what? Glaze!

Here’s the worst hole:

The best was yet to come — something even more interesting than the pottery itself. When I dove into the pit to retreive my bricks before filling in the hole, I discovered the dirt had melted — really melted! I was simply amazed — it’s very brittle, but very cool. I’m thinking about incorporating dirt with firebox pieces in the anagama itself:

So there it is. I can melt dirt. What a great day and better yet, one more down in which I did nothing with the anagama. I have to work the next three days so that will help too.