The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Saturday was a busy pottery day. I started out in Middletown filling in for a teacher on maternity leave. The day's plan was a throwing clinic and it went very well. The class was 6 young ladies of high school age who were just lovely to work with.They paid attention, asked questions, and listened to the answers what more can a teacher ask for ?

At 11:30 class was over and I rushed to a 12:00 kiln opening that was 75 miles away.This was the wood kiln that we had tried to fire for 3 months. Well, the chambers were empty and most folks were packed up by the time I got there but I saw a few folks and retrieved my pots.The two gallon jug and the big pitcher came out pretty well. The big pot that looks like it needs a lid had a lid that split down the middle and it picked up a couple of cracks on its lip as well. Most of the other pots came out dry with hard black ash crusted on them. Woodfire is always an adventure. You learn from your mistakes. There was plenty to learn from.

Dry, nasty,piles of ash permanently stuck inside, can't be saved. Eight or ten more came out like this.Luckily, some of my friends had better results in the first chamber of the kiln so the effort wasn't totally lost.








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