I have often been heard to say that at the end of a craft show that I envy the fiber people. Let me be clear it has nothing to do with not being completely in love with pottery, but I would like to for once not be one of the last ones out of the hall. Pottery is a art-craft that is extremely labour intensive , fragile in the making and full of pit falls in the transportation.
I am really lucky that in the gas firing part of my work to have 2 lovely partners, who are gracious and self effacing. This helps when loading over a period of several days and long hours together. This week as we were unbricking the door of the kiln, we were again reminded that so many elements of this whole process is out of our control. The firing a few before ours had some serious problems and one stack collapsed and many many pots and shelves were lost as they fused together and broke. The owners of the studio brought in some new stilts or bricks which had been kiln washed on both ends, and it was hoped that this among many other new rules and precautions would prevent a repeat of this scenario. We were lucky that it was not a repeat, however , something sure went saggy in the firing, as the whole front stack had leaned back at least an inch. Not really sure what really happened other than some bricks shrank more than others, and some pots were lost to fusing.
We had great colours on our pots, but so close to disaster creates a sense of fear and grateful that electric firing has different challenges.
I am really lucky that in the gas firing part of my work to have 2 lovely partners, who are gracious and self effacing. This helps when loading over a period of several days and long hours together. This week as we were unbricking the door of the kiln, we were again reminded that so many elements of this whole process is out of our control. The firing a few before ours had some serious problems and one stack collapsed and many many pots and shelves were lost as they fused together and broke. The owners of the studio brought in some new stilts or bricks which had been kiln washed on both ends, and it was hoped that this among many other new rules and precautions would prevent a repeat of this scenario. We were lucky that it was not a repeat, however , something sure went saggy in the firing, as the whole front stack had leaned back at least an inch. Not really sure what really happened other than some bricks shrank more than others, and some pots were lost to fusing.
We had great colours on our pots, but so close to disaster creates a sense of fear and grateful that electric firing has different challenges.
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