If you’ve ever taken a ceramics class you’ve probably seen that every step has quite a lot of process. When beginning ceramics, one learns the techniques of hand-building, throwing pots on a potter’s wheel, glazing, and firing at a basic level. There is so much to learn within each of these areas of practice that one could spend many years specializing in each one.
Recently a friend and I were marveling at how we used to fire and build kilns “the old-fashioned way” when we were in school together. In our present day clay work, we both use simple but technologically advanced electric powered kilns with computers that can be programmed to make all of the temperature adjustments and ventilation systems that take care of removing atmospheric moisture, and all of this while we are getting a good night of sleep. This is a far cry from 30 years ago when we would stay up all night to make the incremental manual adjustments necessary to heat and vent a gas kiln.
one of my electric computerized kilns in action
a gas kiln in action and top image shows the pyrometric cones that we used to determine the kiln's temperature during a gas firing
With a non-computerized gas kiln, each adjustment in temperature is make by hand and involves getting the balance of air and fuel just right. The slow heating up and reaching of vitrification temperature is a controlled and intentional process with manual adjustments every hour for 6-18 hours depending on what you’re firing and what kind of kiln.
One of the Raku kilns was on a pulley system
I remember that back then I didn’t really know what I was doing most of the time, but learned from the more advanced and experienced students who generously shared their know-how. Firing an open-flamed gas kiln was a communal and primal ritual that usually involved roasting various things to eat over the fire, often lots of drinking, storytelling and always bonding. Ceramics in general is very communal and to this day I remain connected to my ceramics community old and new.
photo credit Richard Yates
Because my professor Paul Soldner was credited for popularizing the firing techniques of Raku and Salt Firing in the United States, Scripps College/Claremont Graduate University where I went to school had a plethora of kilns in the small kiln yard and firing was always an especially important part of the process for any ceramics piece a student made.
in retrospect this kiln yard at Scripps looks like a huge mess, but at the time it was one of my favorite places on campus! Here a catenary arch kiln in action and in the foreground is another Raku kiln sitting idle
All of our kilns were built as class projects every 5-10 years or so. Soldner was an innovative experimenter and applied his scientific mind to ceramics processes at every turn creating new machinery, techniques, and breaking rules to find simpler ways to solve problems. His teaching was brilliant in that he would break down complex concepts into their simplest foundational components which made even advanced subjects like glaze formulation, kiln-building, and making clay accessible to students.
Paul and Ben Parks in the process of tearing down the catenary arch kiln
During my 2nd year in the program, one of the catenary arch kilns wasn’t working well so Paul decided it was time to remake it and I was lucky enough to participate. This wasn’t glamorous work and every step was incredibly dirty. It involved taking apart the old kiln, cleaning the old mortar and glaze debris from the old firebricks with a chisel, mixing mortar, and carefully following directions to place the bricks in the precise catenary arch formation. Paul and one other advanced graduate students did most of the interesting and skilled work involved.
an LA writer was writing a book on Paul's life and she too helped with this once in a life time opportunity to clean bricks
Although my participation was minimal and manual only, the experience gave me a familiarity and understanding of how kilns work as a result of this construction project. Along with so many other valuable teachings from that time, this kind of foundational knowledge created a kind of “knowing” in my bones that collectively built a reliable intuition that I use every day and in this case informs my decisions when it comes to firing and repairing kilns.
Gifted Netherland artist Wil Van Blokland and I mixed the mortar. She became a good friend and a few years later when I graduated I spent a few months with her at her home and studio in Da Purmerend, the Netherlands)
Firing my electric computer-controlled kilns today is not a particularly romantic nor communal process, but for what I’m doing it serves perfectly well and I have to admit that I enjoy the freedom these kilns offer - sleeping undisturbed through the night for instance! And when I get a hankering for the more primal and interesting firings, I can easily seek out one of the many local gas, Salt and Raku firings that occur regularly at other local studios.
Many thanks for supporting my blog about my art and process, self-mastery, and the nature of things!
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