Wow — Time Flies
So it’s been almost exactly a year since my last post. In that time, I fired the kiln again. I took many pictures of the pieces with elaborate lighting. I hated all the pictures. It seems so easy to get something about 80% good. Then I start going into perfectionist mode and want it to be better, fail, become despondent, and actually accomplish nothing at all.
C’est la vie.
The tenth firing came out very nice and many of the pieces were interesting — I made some wall pieces and sprinkled on ash, feldspar and sand, and got some likeable results. No pictures though, and I really don’t think I’m going to go back and do anything about that at this point. The whole photography issue became a roadblock and rather than overcome it, I’m just going around.
At 1:05 am this morning, I lit the gas burner on the 11th firting. Most of the pieces are handbuilt and I’m again trying out some ideas for wall pieces. I have great firewood, and I’m feeling pretty good about this firing.
By the same token, it is getting harder and harder to load the kiln. My body won’t bend itself into the same scrunched up shapes it used to go into. It took three days to load this time — I’m getting slower and slower. I really must build one of Steve Harrison’s long throat kilns, which sound similar to the “Broken Leg Kiln” that Furutani built (differences being that Harrison uses a Boury Box, and Furutani just used a simple ash-pit-free anagama style fire space).
Anyway, here’s a shot of the preheating kiln from earlier this morning (click the picture to enlarge).