A Little Kiln Christmas

A very kind person with a kindred interest in pottery history and kiln furniture sent me a wonderful package recently. It contained sherds and kiln furniture from several pottery sites in Missouri.This is like Christmas for a nerdy person like me.

 What's even better? Nearly every piece in the box was individually wrapped!

 There's an assortment of pieces from two creek banks on the eastern side of Boonville, Missouri. As I understand, there were a number of potters working along the creeks including Marcus Williams, George and Nicholas Valrath, Nicholas Lauer, H.W. Valrath, J.M Jegglin, and August A. Blanck. These potters worked at various times, but between the 1830s and the 1890s. The pieces from these various potters' operations tell so much about their kiln firings and their pottery production. Here are a few short highlights:

 Who wouldn't be excited about a brick?!

 It's not just any brick. It's likely a brick from a kiln as several surfaces on the brick show layers of wood ash and likely salt fumes.

 In the photo above, check out the cross section of a thick layer of salt and wood ash built up on one side of the brick.

 The above piece seems innocent enough, but it is so incredibly exciting to me.

 It was a piece of kiln furniture that was at the early stages of its life going to be cut up into smaller pieces of kiln furniture. The cut pieces of kiln furniture that I was sent tended to all be about the same thickness.

 Above is a rim showing the mark a small square piece of kiln furniture left on a piece when it was used in the kiln firing. In the roughly 35 different pre-1860 stoneware kiln sites I have looked at I have only seen small square pieces of kiln furniture used at 3 or 4 sites, and have observed it on some pieces of intact pottery. It's a tedious process making small squares (I know because I use them!), but they seem to serve a good purpose of covering a small area on the surface of the vessel, which makes it less likely that the pots would stick to one another along with the kiln furniture.

 I was almost giddy when I saw the piece above. Can you guess what it is?

 Hopefully the two views above may give you a better idea. It's two rims that got fused together with glaze. However, they were two rims from two bowls that were stacked, nested inside one another!

 These bowls were similarly glazed to the bowl above- the underside of the exterior rim was dry, allowing the bowls to be nested inside of one another during the firing. I suppose if the base did not come in enough though, or the dry section of the underside of the rim was not wide enough, the glaze would fuse the pieces together. I sure hope there was not a large stack of bowls that suddenly became one giant stack!

 The two photos above are great to see because it tells me something about the kiln firing. On the rivulets left by the wood ash and salt you can see tiny crystals. Crystals don't typically form on the surface unless the kiln has been cooled very slowly. When my kiln was first built and a little tighter, I recall having this occur just once on a few pieces after a heavily-salted firing. The kiln took a few more days than usual to cool and I got some crystals.

 Though most kiln furniture was likely made during the loading and rolled and shaped to fit each various piece going in the kiln, the plethora of rim shapes and various shapes of kiln furniture made up never ceases to amaze and amuse me.

 This particular piece just happened to nicely fit onto one of the rims in the box, so though it probably was not used together during a particular firing, it is possible that the two shapes came from the same pottery shop, so the kiln furniture would not have varied much from firing to firing.

Though not made ahead of time like the flat, cut pieces could have been, the little barbell-shaped pieces below are always great to handle because you often get to see a lot of fingerprints on them.

 Check out this post from a while back about making this shape of kiln furniture.

 Jug stackers are always fun to find because it definitely gives you an idea of what the jugs would have looked like as a result of using them.

 In other notes, we are avidly getting ready for our farm open house and pottery sale in a few weeks, so come visit if you are in the area!

Don Carpentier Tribute- the Half Saggars

Don showing the engine lathe in his pottery shop.

The world lost a giant in 2014 when Don Carpentier passed away. Don Carpentier was the mastermind behind Eastfield Village, and a maker of reproduction English mocha/dipped wares and shell-edge pottery. Eastfield was host to a series of workshops each year, focusing on various aspects of historic craft and architectural preservation. One of the workshops was focused on ceramics and pottery production, and was fondly nicknamed "Dish Camp." As a plug, the ceramics workshop as well as many of the other workshops are slated to take place this year. I will post more information when it becomes available.

Demonstrating kiln furniture and stacking at Eastfield in 2014.

I first attended the ceramics workshop in 2009, and first presented in 2011. Don was one of the few potters and skilled craftspeople that I have found such a strong connection with because of his interest in historic pottery, his experience in making reproductions, and his intense passion for learning. There are also few people I have met who get quite as excited about kiln furniture as I do. I think I was most heartbroken when Don passed because I lost such a kindred spirit and a mentor.

 Don had ALS for the last several years of his life and for the past two years that I saw him we communicated through various aspects other than speech. We once had a whole conversation in the dirt, drawing out ideas and wiping them away. In the summer of 2014 he had an Ipad that he typed things onto, but he still communicated on paper. I enjoyed our paper communications since we could banter back and forth through pictures, words, or just plain understanding what the other person was trying to say because we understood pottery on a similar level. Above is a photo of a conversation we had about half-saggars, excavated from a waster dump associated with the Bissett family of potters from New Jersey.

Photo of kiln furniture Don excavated in New Jersey. Courtesy, Don's Facebook page.

Photo of kiln furniture Don excavated in New Jersey. Courtesy, Don's Facebook page.

Don realized a few years ago through genealogical research that he descended from several prominent family of potters from New Jersey- the Bissett's and the Price's. Their exact history was obscured for so long because focus had been paid largely on the Morgan and Van Wickle potteries in New Jersey. However, Don being his lovely exploratory self, sought out more information about his family and began to break down some of the previous research on New Jersey stoneware. Above are a few photos of kiln furniture from a house site associated with the Bissett family near where the pottery operated. Don also wrote a great article on his research in the Maine Antique Digest in 2013, but the link is currently blocked unless you are a subscriber. If I get a direct link I will be sure to change it. You can read some notes on his research and collecting in a great tribute written by Brandt Zipp from Crocker Farm.

So, back to those half-saggars."Half-saggars?!" you might say? Don't worry, I said the same thing! They are purposefully-made, not fully round pieces in the same shape as a regular saggar. The edges are mostly clean-cut, and salted, so they were definitely used in the manner in which they were made.

Kiln furniture bar with piece of saggar attached.

Imprint of adjoining rim on base of kiln furniture.

Above is a piece of kiln furniture that had a piece of a saggar left on it as well as the imprint of an adjoining saggar rim.  Don came up to me while I was photographing the kiln furniture after most everyone left on Sunday. He saw me puzzling out the pieces and began placing them together so that I could wrap my brain around how they worked.

Placing a few half-saggars and kiln furniture together.

 I have never seen anything like this before or since, and am glad I took the time to measure the half saggars while I was there last summer. Saggars, as I have so frequently thought of them, are often fully round, and often enclosed (no holes or perforations) if not being used in a salt-glaze atmosphere.

Rough sketch of how the half-saggars and large bars may have interacted.

Saggars also tend to have a bottom of some kind, but instead, these saggars made use of thick, long bars that crossed the saggars to make a slotted floor.  It makes sense that this type of saggar would make use of more room and leave less empty space. Don wrote on our note I included above that they (the potters) were "desperate people," but perhaps they were just good engineers and figured something out that others had not. He also wrote "It must have been a site[sight] to see!" and truly, it probably was quite a sight when they had the kiln stacked up. As I was leaving "Dish Camp" last year, Don tapped me on the shoulder and guided me to a box of kiln furniture from the Bissett site and told me to take it home for my kiln furniture teaching collection.  I have a few small sections of these half-saggars in my collection now with the gift from Don, and hope that the other materials will stay together with his NJ pottery collection as a teaching tool. I wish I could have gone with him on his last expedition to excavate materials from near the pottery site in New Jersey.

Also, the week of "Dish Camp" was the beginning of when we started telling people I was pregnant. I will never forget the gleam of joy on Don's face when I told him. After giving him a hug before I left Eastfield, I told him to take care. He looked at me, smiling, pointed to my stomach, and mouthed, "you take care, too!"Thanks for all you did, Don, and for the short years I got to know you.

Traveling Potter Part I

I've been horrible to leave you all in the dark for the last month. Needless to say, there's been a lot going on and I will try to catch you up this week. For the past 5 days I have been in New England traveling first to Upstate New York for Don Carpentier's Eastfield Village ceramic workshop (which we fondly call "Dish Camp"). Last night I arrive in Deerfield, Massachusetts and had the opportunity today to work with the students in their Summer Fellowship Program. Slowly, I have been working to try and reach out to programs and conferences for doing workshops to talk about historic pottery, demonstrate pottery making, and particularly talk about kiln furniture and historic kilns. It is really fun to start to see things coming into fruition.

Talking about kiln furniture

I first did a presentation for the students about my background, my work in museums, and my hands-on experience and approach to material culture as a potter. Then we went into a workshop space where I talked about kiln furniture, showed various pieces from my collection, and talked about how to recognize how pots were fired by marks on their surface.

Stacking pots with kiln furniture

I then did a little demonstration with stacking pots in order to show the function of kiln furniture and how the various shapes interact with one another and the vessels.

After showing the students the basics of handles and throwing a vessel on the wheel, I got them on the wheel and making handles. Prior to coming, I made mug blanks in order for them to gain experience with pulling a handle from the side of the mug.

Particularly for students studying objects in museums, I think learning the various aspects of pottery production is important. Even understanding the basics can change your approach and understanding of an object.

 

 Above are their final products from the afternoon, a bowl-like form, and a handled mug! And for kicks, here is my face after my attempt to join two sections resulted in the base being too wet and collapsing:

More to come, stay tuned!

On the Farm- Stoneware Sherd!

What could be more exciting than receiving a text from the farmer telling me that he found the neck and handle section of a jug while planting sweet potatoes?! Above is the marred remains of said jug section, but boy, was I excited! Do you see what I see?

Unglazed interior of the jug

First, we'll get out of the way that it is stoneware. It is also salt-glazed. The interior is not glazed which generally tells me that it pre-dates 1850, since that is when it starts to become more common to see pots glazed on the interior.

Marbling in the broken section showing the possibility of rolled clay

The handle is particularly awesome for many reasons. One, is that the end of the handle where it broke has this beautiful marbled texture that almost looks like the wedge of clay was rolled before being attached to the bottle and pulled for a handle. Does that make sense? The potter took a hunk of clay, rolled it into a fat snake-shape, then attached it to the neck of the jug, and pulled the shape of the handle. I don't know that this is for sure how it happened, but it makes sense to me and visually seems to match my theory.

The handle is also quite thick, roughly 1 1/4- 1 1/2 inches across at the top, which makes me wonder how large the jug was that needed such a thick handle!

Can you spot the cobalt blob at the upper part of the handle?

Cobalt blob circled

Another reason is that it has a blob of cobalt on the upper part of the handle where it joins the vessel. This tells me that it is probably not English, as I don't know that I have seen an English jug with a blob of cobalt at the handle juncture.

And then we come to perhaps the most tantalizing part of this piece- the evidence of kiln furniture! Can you make out the subtle chance in surface color and texture to the right of the handle remain in the photo above?

That subtle change in surface color and texture tells me that it is a touch mark, most likely where a piece of kiln furniture touched the top of the handle. Not just any piece of kiln furniture, mind you, but a bar!

Combined with the very dry surface of the rim, the touch mark and dry rim tell me that a bar was used to stack this jug in the kiln when it was fired. Check out a blog post I did a few years ago on this topic to get an idea of what the kiln furniture looked like. I'm not coming to the conclusion that this piece was made in Fayetteville (per the linked blog post), but I don't recall seeing stacked jugs like this much in Virginia (off the top of my head, maybe in Alexandria), and am not sure about Tennessee. The neck doesn't match the pieces from Fayetteville, either, so we'll toss that thought until we (hopefully) find more pieces!

We had a great turn out for the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association's Triad Farm Tour last Saturday and Sunday. This coming Sunday is our own farm open house and pottery sale. Lots of new pots, seconds, and older pieces at deep discounts!