Blog #15, Fall 2024

Soda pot

This was wood kiln week and boy it was a doozy. Monday, we started loading the kiln which really took all day and it was so cold I couldn’t feel anything by the end of it. Like holy moly it was cold! As we realized not everything would fit into the wood kiln, we decided to load the rest of the work into the soda kiln and run that while we were already going to be out here for the wood kiln. After loading both up, we bricked up both doors and started the soda candle but spoiler they blew out overnight so the schedule got a little messed up. The week was a bit chaotic so my days got a little twisted but overall had a great firing, everything went pretty smooth in terms of firing and I had a lot of fun with everyone despite the freezing cold. We all had a lot of fun making the most of being together and being out in the cold, lots of singing and dancing. Doing another wood fire makes me really appreciate the difficulty of a wood firing that makes the work that comes out that much more rewarding. Ended the week with unloading the soda kiln, I had some results I was happy with but over all that clay body seems to be better suited for the wood kiln. A lot of the pieces I got from the soda were rather flat and red in color without much variation. I am really excited to unload the wood kiln next week, I am very anxious about how it is all going to turn out.