Kiln Drips

Have you ever wondered where those large drips on antique pots such as this come from?

I love the color variation in the drips on the shoulder, I don't know if you can zoom in enough to see the flecking of other components from the kiln brick, or just general atmosphere. 

Yes, I'm the person that buys the pots with blobs, chips, and broken handles. They have character!  I will say that this bottle was a rare purchase of a non-ovoid bottle. I mostly purchased it for the kiln drips. 

I was crawling around in Sid Luck's kiln the other day and grabbed my camera to take a few photos of the origins of kiln drips. What you are seeing in these photos is a combination of the build up of ash and salt on the interior arch of the kiln, and in some part a degredation of the brick from the ash and salt. Older kilns which did not necessarily have hard brick or soft brick and just used locally made brick broke down faster. Sid was saying this past weekend that his ancestors' kilns were fired until they collapsed in because they were made from local brick.

This angled shot shows how the melting drips hang from the ceiling. 

And just like the way in which different clay bodies turn different colors in the kiln, different kiln bricks melt and react differently to their environment. Some of the brick in Sid's kiln was salvaged from his grandfather's (or father's?) kiln, so the darker- colored ones could be made from local clays. 

Kiln drips may also come from glazes of other pots, such as this drip on one of my pots when it was fired in Joseph Sand's kiln.

The blue drip on the left side of the bottle was not intentional, but very beautiful. 

Historically though, pots were generally only glazed on the interior (if they were glazed at all) until industrialized potteries started glazing the interior and the exterior. And I should say I am referring to stoneware, not earthenware, because that is a whole different ballgame!
And even when the pots were glazed on the outside, sometimes the kiln still got the best of the pot. For example, this alkaline-glazed Meaders piece in the collection of Steve Ferrell in Edgefield, South Carolina has a huge chunk of kiln which fell from the ceiling during the firing, slid down the side of the pot and adhered itself to the base. The fluke of this piece is probably what kept it from getting broken all of these years!

The chunk of kiln brick is at the bottom left of the piece in this photograph. 

Austin, Texas

Doorknob at the State Capitol in Austin, Texas

Texas was one of those states which seemed like an interesting place to go if I ever got the chance, but I didn't think it would be one of the states I would actually make it to someday (nothing against Texas!). Well, that changed when I was invited to present on a panel at the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) conference in Austin, Texas!

What in the world would you present at an archaeology conference, you might ask?
Well, my Master's thesis with the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture was on the Moravian potters and pottery of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Because there are no intact objects with firm attribution to the Bethlehem Moravian potters, the work was largely archaeological. By reassessing and analyzing archaeological material excavated in the 1970s, and doing a lot of archival research, I found some really great things.

Archaeological ceramic sherd excavated in the Moravian Industrial Quarter of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The dark red color is the lead glaze which remains on the red earthenware body, and the lined pattern is from the white slip trailing which has popped off. Courtesy, Historic Bethlehem.

Archaeological ceramic sherd excavated in the Moravian Industrial Quarter of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The yellow slip trailing is actually white, but appears yellow beneath the lead glaze. Green, white, and black were the three most prominant slip colors used. Courtesy, Historic Bethlehem.

The SHA conference presentation revolved around some archival evidence I found that the Bethlehem Moravian potters may have been sending pottery to the Virgin Islands. I have been working with Stephen Lenik who has been excavating in the Virgin Islands, and we have been comparing archaeological sherds from the Virgin Islands and Bethlehem (keep your eyes peeled, we're working on an article!).
    I also went to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum and got to see some mid-nineteenth century stoneware produced in Texas with alkaline glaze. I never realized that pottery was being produced as early as 1839 in Texas! I also got a chance to go and see the State Capitol and the rotunda inside:

State Capitol in Austin, Texas

Rotunda in State Capitol

And, in case you ever wondered where O'Henry lived in Austin, Texas for a few years before going to jail and then New York, well, here it is:

O'Henry House, Austin, Texas.