Double Kiln Duty

I am exhausted, so I will keep this short. I wanted to share my adventure of helping with two kilns this weekend! It was great to not only get a few pots fired, but also to experience two very different kiln styles. On Saturday I helped Sid Luck with the last half of his kiln firing. Today I helped Joseph Sand with the last part of his kiln firing (well, the last 8 or 9 hours!). At Sid's numerous people help out with the stoking. At Joseph's today, I stood pretty much in front of the toasty 2350 degree front opening where I was stoking.

My "residence" today at Joseph Sand's

Levi Mahan and several other local potters helped with stoking the side ports

It was really great to have the experience of keeping a close eye on the temperature and gaining and understanding of when to stoke, how much to stoke, and how much wood to use. On the mention of temperature, Joseph uses pyrometers! I'm a big fan of knowing the temperature of a kiln, so it was great to see the kiln hooked up in several places.

Pyrometers on top of Joseph Sand's kiln

Both Sid and Joseph salt their kilns with leaf blowers. Sid only uses the leaf blower in the front half of the kiln and puts a few cupfuls of salt into the ports on top of the kiln. Joseph uses the leaf blower in the front and down the ports on either side of the kilns.

Sid Luck and his son, Jason, salting on the left, and Joseph Sand salting on the right

I am deeply grateful to both of these potters for giving me the opportunity to help fire their kilns. Here is hoping all turns out well. I will post the results later this week!

One of my mugs in the center of the photo in Sid Luck's kiln on the front bag wall

One of Joseph's jars during the crash cool

Sid Luck sitting on the swing under the kiln shelter at Luck's Ware

Toasting to the Kilns

A toast to the kiln firings this weekend! I'm excited to participate in firing Joseph Sand and Sid Luck's wood kilns this weekend. I will post the results when the kilns are opened next week!

Toasting with bisque ware!

American Ceramic Circle Meeting

The 'wings' of the Milwaukee Art Museum opened

This past weekend wasthe annual meeting of the American Ceramic Circle. This year's meeting was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is a really nice city! (Not that I'm surprised by that fact, I had just never been there!) The lectures and presentations were at the Milwaukee Art Museum(MAM), which is a wonderful feat of architecture! I had the opportunity to watch the "wings" open twice! The lectures were all very insightful and interesting. I was really excited that there were quite a few archaeological presentations too! I was also excited that there was quite a contingent of North Carolinians there! Archaeologist Linda Carnes-McNaughton, potter Mary Farrell from Westmoore Pottery, and Hal and Eleanor Pugh from New Salem Pottery were there. Mary, Hal, and Eleanor did a pottery demonstration at the museum on Sunday. Potter Michelle Erikson also did a demonstration on how she learned to recreate North Carolina Moravian bottles, such as the faience ring bottle, and the eagle flask (check out the Ceramics in America publications mentioned below for images of the originals).

Michelle trimming the ring bottle

The eagle flask after Michelle popped it out of the mold and assembled the various parts

The exhibit Art In Clay has a lot of the objects which were reassessed in the 2009 and 2010 Ceramics in America publications. It was really great to see them all in one place, and to see archaeological fragments with intact pieces. Unfortunately, I was unable to take any photos! However, I can show you photos of the innovative ceramic displays as a part of the Chipstone Foundation's galleries at the MAM.
The decorative arts galleries have a series of exhibition spaces and thematic arrangements. Each space invites the visitor to get close to the objects, see them at eye level, and perhaps, think about them in a different way. As curator John Prown said, the "awakening of wonder, surprise, and curiosity should always be the goal."

This desk and bookcase is filled with minerals, fossils, and shells in order to have the visitor think about the influences nature had on the carvings and design of the piece in the 18th century

One of the most fascinating displays was called Loca Miraculi or Rooms of Wonder which offered interactive drawers in cases to pull out and see natural materials, botanical prints, and other art which historically influenced ceramic and furniture design. Curator Ethan Lasser did a presentation on the galleries, and explained that they worked to show "aspects of an object which connect it to its cultural and historical background."

The cases were beautifully designed and artfully arranged. For an example of how this exhibit worked, the teapots below were made in the second half of the 18th century. They look very Art Deco, don't they?

The teapot on the left is earthenware (creamware) and the pot on the right is salt-glazed stoneware

These pieces were influenced by a fervor for geological formations in the eighteenth-century. Prints and drawings were widely distributed, and the excitement for the shapes and textures were transferred to ceramic.



The reproduced image pages in the drawer came from A General Natural History authored by John Hill ca. 1748

The same series of cases also put geologic stones such as agate paired with a piece of agate earthenware produced in the third quarter of the 18th-century. I thought this was especially fascinating and beautiful to see the pairs together.  

Agate earthenware compared with geologic agate stone

The lectures wrapped up on Saturday, and I ended my Saturday evening with a lovely dish of sausage, bratwurst, cheese, and sauerkraut at Mader's. Mader's has been around since 1909, and it was wonderful. The Franciskaner Weissbier Dunkel beer was also very good.

Branching Out With Technology

Okay, I know this is not DIRECTLY pottery-related, however, I have recently finished taking a course in audio documentary editing and have been working with photography for years. I wanted to share a piece I finished since it relates to my recent post on Dry Branch Farm. It also has me thinking about how to use these mediums to share my explorations and adventures in historical and contemporary pottery. I would like to know what readers think about combining audio and still photography and whether it could provide enough depth as a teaching and sharing tool. All of the photographs and audio clips were captured and edited by me through the graciousness of those who hosted and attended the event. Enjoy!

Eating my Words

In the past when people have asked me about bisquing ware with glass in it, I have told them confidently, "I have never had that happen." Even in my recent post, "Green Bottle Glass" I said, "The glass does not melt at all in the bisque, it anneals a little, but doesn't melt." Well, I withdraw my comments.
I knew there was something awry when I picked up a piece recently bisqued and saw this:

A large sagging drip of glass hung from the side of a mug. Then I looked at the other pieces. Some of the glass had not melted, but many of the pieces with glass in them looked like this:

I became more mesmerized by how beautiful the glass looked on top of the dry bisque body of the clay, and how fascinating it is to see the glass frozen, mid-melt. In all actuality, it is likely that these kilns are newer than many I have used before, and perhaps were operating a little hotter (I'll admit, I did not fire the bisque myself). I'm just going to cross my fingers that the glass does not get too frisky in the final firing!
So, perhaps I am not really eating my words, but chewing on what to say in the future!

Visiting Old Friends

Lane Linnenkohl disking the field at Dry Branch Farm Photo by the author

Sorry I have been so delinquent. I presented at the Bethlehem Moravian History and Music Conference last weekend on my thesis topic of the Moravian potters in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It was a good conference, and I enjoyed the exchange of discussion about objects, memory, and historical value. All excuses aside, a few weekends ago I was at Dry Branch Farm in Summer Shade, Kentucky. Lane Linnenkohl,farmer, and owner of Dry Branch Farm, is a dear friend. Now, the real reason for being at Dry Branch Farm was to enjoy the last farm party there in Kentucky. It was somewhat bittersweet, but an exciting event filled with lots of music, lots of food, and of course, a pig roast!



Lane operates the farm on horse power, which I think is beautiful and admirable Photos by the author

 While I was there I had the opportunity to see some of my old pieces of pottery. I had given these pieces to Ricki Linnenkohl, Lane's wife, because I knew she would use them rather than me keeping them boxed up. These pieces always remind me of things I was developing, and how I critique my own work. So I thought I would share my visit with these old friends. These were all made while in the Ceramics Apprenticeship Program at Berea College.
My pitchers have changed dramatically over the years, especially my handles. I found this pitcher in one of the cupboards at the farm. It is reduction-fired with a clear glaze and a painted decoration applied with the Tenmoku glaze which was also on the inside and on the rim. One thing I noticed the most about this pitcher is how thin the handle was, and how my handle terminal was not very strong.

This piece was a test piece for the salt kiln. I was working on textures and form, and while I enjoy what a thick slip of clay can do for the texture, I recall a comment about this piece being that the form needed work. I agree. It does make a nice utensil holder though!

This piece was hard to depart with. I was playing with testing various kinds of glass in the salt kiln, and the textures of handles. I thought the form was pretty nice, but the collar and neck needed some work. One of the critiques I remember receiving was that the piece looked incomplete, like it needed something. At the time, I didn't really see it, and now I do. It could use a lid, or the collar and neck could have been done in a different manner so as not to be so stark and straight-up.

Then there was the casserole. Anyone who was a part of the Ceramics Apprenticeship Program around 2007 remembers the bloating clay. It took a while to figure out what was going on, but in the end it was an impurity in one of our clays which we were mixing in the clay body we used for throwing. It didn't necessarily show up in the bisque firing, but definitely reared its ugly head during the glaze firing. This casserole had a few bloats on the outside, but I always enjoyed the glaze combination, and the knob on the top. It was my first run of making large casseroles, hollow knobs, and a ton of lidded objects! But it brings back the nightmares of losing entire kiln loads of pottery!

In closing, seeing these pieces again reminded me to always have a critical eye for my own work, and to step back and look at a piece in its entirety--- analyzing all of the components and how they work together.

Green Bottle Glass

 Following my recent post a fellow former apprentice from Berea, Naomi Sellards, requested that I post some photos of what the green bottle glass looked like after it is fired. I put the chunks of green wine bottle glass on the pieces before they are bisqued. The glass does not melt at all in the bisque, it anneals a little, but doesn't melt. This also avoids applying the glass with glaze (post-bisque) and crossing your fingers that the glass stays on the piece during the firing. From experience, I will say that I don't recommend doing this unless you are putting it on top of a handle or horizontal surface. Otherwise, the glaze, which you thought would hold the glass on, fluxes before the glass fluxes in the final firing and drops the glass (or so it would seem, I could be wrong as to what exactly it does in there). Also, putting the glass in it when the ware is green leaves a neat impression on the piece after the glass melts in the final kiln.

Green bottle glass pressed into green ware

As I mentioned in the previous blog, I'm a devotee of green wine bottle glass. I have tried other kinds of glass. I did some experimenting with this when I was at Berea. I don't have any photos of what happpened with the brown bottle glass, but it basically would leave these nasty pink crizzled streaks on the piece. I think there was either an impurity in the brown glass, or it just didn't like salt.



Nice collection of melted glass in the texture of the mug

A little crystallizing!

I don't put large chunks on because depending on where it is in a wood kiln, the glass can get really out of control! Either way, I really like how the glass pools on the textured surface of the newer pieces I have been making. I'm willing to do some grinding if I have to. I've heard other potters such as Mark Hewitt use pure glass pieces, or frit, for their glass source. Some people I've talked to have used beads from a craft store. My experience with beads from a craft store was not good (especially blue beads) as the surface crizzled and didn't look good. I think it must have something to do with the level of purity that the glass is. I could be completely wrong, and if any of you know better than I, please do let me know! In the meantime, I'll stick with green wine bottle glass.



I have quite a few pieces with glass in them (hopefully) going in a kiln in the next month. I'll be sure to post photos of their outcome!