Huge couple of weeks

This past week I spent helping Joe and Christy Cole up at the Windy Ridge Pottery in Wisconsin. It was a really cool experience for me because it was the first time I had really been around a larger wood fired kiln. I have been to Mark Hewitt's pottery in North Carolina and seen those kilns but I only spent about an hour all together around both kilns.

Our first project while I was there was to re coat the kiln with a new and improved adobe mix that contained some local red clay. The original coat looked sort of grey and boring and you can see that one below.




















The New coat on the kiln has so much character. It has a nice dark red to orange color due to local clay. The new coat of adobe held up pretty well during the firing. There were a couple of cracks in the first chamber but that didn't really seem to effect anything.















Here is the stack in the first chamber of the kiln. If you go to the Windy Ridge pottery blog you can see a couple of other pictures of the other chamber and the light stacking that it had. In the front of the actual stack there is a row of unglazed pots and to the right of the taller bottle in the middle is one of the pots that I was able to get into the kiln. Throughout the firing that bottle and almost everything to the right of the bigger bottle for some reason got knocked over.




















This picture is for Joe. On their blog they had a stokers gallery but Joe didn't seem to have a picture of himself. This picture is so perfect because Joe is stoking what looks like half of a tree into the kiln. That slab of wood lasted quite a while before it finally burned all out.















Here is that Bottle from one of the previous pictures. Some time during the beginning of the firing the taller bottle in the middle of the stack broke so Joe pulled it out of the kiln so the pots behind where is was sitting could get a little more ash. In the process I think my pot got knocked over but I'm pretty sure that wasn't really Joe's fault because it was teetering before he started poking around. It was about one or two hours before we stopped stoking in the first chamber that Joe decided that we should pull the pot out of the kiln so I could take it home with me. I didn't know exactly how well that was going to work but he assured me that everything would be fine. He told me that David Stuempfle does it all the time so I trusted him. Good thing I did because the pot looked pretty sweet for hanging out in the firebox most of the firing. I will post a picture of the next time I post.
















While at the pottery I found out how much I dont know about being a wood fired potter. I mean I am able to make the pots and all of that stuff but after seeing how much goes on and how much you really need to know about kiln design and function I figured that I needed a little more training. Joe and Christy helped me come up with a list of possible apprenticeships and/or residency opportunities. Hopefully something comes about. If anyone out there in blogger land knows of any good opportunities that will keep me close to a wood kiln I am all ears.

I also found out about a wood fired workshop while at Joe and Christy's but of course I missed the deadline by about 4 days. I thought I would try my luck and email the guy and lucky for me he still had a spot open so on Aug. 10th I will be making my way to Strawberry Point, Iowa for the workshop. It seems like an awesome experience because we will be building, loading, and firing a wood fired kiln based on a Korean design. It should be fun.

I will post some more pictures from Wisconsin soon. Until then.....