Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Kiln Site Visit and Cleaning Brick

Cleaning brick
My world has been a whole lot of cleaning brick lately to get some more of the kiln completed. We've also been working to finish the kiln/machine shed completely before the summer sets in. Lord knows no one wants to work on building a structure in July or August with the heat we have been having lately! I can't imagine what it's going to be like this summer!
Blossom on a zucchini plant!
I have also been working on the 150+ tomato plants we have planted at the farm, suckering and getting them tidied up. We have blooms on our squash and zucchini plants as well as small squash and zucchini! Looks like we may have two varieties of zucchini and some yellow squash at the Greensboro Curb Farmer's Market this weekend!
The trip to Williamsburg/Yorktown, Virginia went well last week. Too brief as usual. Here are some teasers from my visit to Yorktown last week to see the collection of materials from the William Rogers kiln site, from around the second quarter of the 18th-century. See if you can make some guesses as to what is going on in the photos, and then I'll try to get a more detailed post up about some of my finds soon!
Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection

Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection

Courtesy, National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown Collection

2 comments:

Ollie said...

interested to hear your thoughts on the first misfire- I was looking at an Alamance piece with Linda and Mary in Art in Clay a couple weeks ago with big dry splotches with similar edges. Some kind of grease or wax? Something that burned off after the salt took?
Missed you in Williamsburg. I had checked out Comstock for you- still have it. I was just down in Winston but didn't have time to stop in Liberty (also, forgot to bring the book, meh)

Liberty Stoneware said...

Which photo are you referring to as a misfire? What site were you looking at in the AIC exhibition that had salt? Sorry my WBurg trip was such a whirlwind and that I (apologetically) did not respond to your e-mail. I was able to borrow a copy of Comstock from someone at MESDA. Thanks for checking it out though! I have been telling people that I will give them a finder's fee if they can find a copy for less than $200...Let me know when you're back in WS, I'll be there with the Summer Institute for part of June and most of July.