BTW - If you are in the Atlanta area in October, I’ll have some pots in the MudFire’s Asheville in Atlanta show. Big thanks to Kyle Carpenter for the invite!

Just before going on vacation, I rebuilt the kiln. Yeah… go figure… Same dimensions, same frame work, same bricks (flipped) but a slightly different configuration. It’s not the typical Olsen fast fire 32 design anymore. I really needed to be able to stoke the kiln from one side. Running back and forth was really wearing me down physically. So now both fire boxes are stoked from the same side, and will accomodate slightly large wood. The stacking space is a little less than before due to this, but hopefully all things considered, the added ease of loading and firing will hopefully make it so I can fire at least once a month. The good news was, the salt and soda hadn’t taken too much of a toll on the soft brick in the year and a half of firings (14 firings total). I’ll take pictures soon and do a full post about these changes. In the mean time I am madly trying to get pots made and fill it so I can fire the first week of September.

Started a new sculpture to work on in between pots.This one is done with highwater’s craggy crunch, and so far it’s a pretty stout clay body, if a little gritty from all the grogs. We’ll see if we get cracks. I am trying to be more careful about my drying to. I’ve found myself drawing more and more lately, which is great for me, and I really like the changes I am seeing in my sketches based on my experiences sculpting heads.

I’ve been getting some encouraging feedback from the sculptures I’ve been doing this year, both from other artists whose opinions I value, not to mention selling a few can really motivate. I still had issues with cracking, probably due to my work schedule more than anything, but I thought I’d mix up a batch of reclaim with some various grogs and nylon fiber. I started on a few small pieces and then a larger bust. Unfortunately the clay with the fiber does it’s job too well. I can’t slice it half to hollow it out… hell… I can’t even cut it without the fibers clogging the knife. So, the piece below will never see the light of a kiln most likely. I suppose the nylon would be best to use in slab/coil construction method. Just another case where I think a change in materials will fix my lack of discipline I guess.

Reclaimed stoneware with nylon. Iron rich backyard terra sig slip.

Detail

Field and Michael Kline’s Kiln Shed

Before they get lost in my noggin, I wanted to share a few new things I’ve learned in the past month.

I’ve always loved watching other artists and potters work. It doesn’t matter what part of the process you witness, there is always something to be gleamed, fermented and utilized. These processes are nothing more than one a long series of decisions. Even firing the kiln is a cycle of action, observation, decision, and action again.

Having had the chance to help Michael Kline stoke his kiln this past month, I got to ease drop on some of the decisions another potter has to make during the firing. Extra bonus - was seasoned potter Alex Matisse, who was there to help as well.

Decisions Decisions…

There’s a book I like to look at from time to time. It’s left over from my days as a graphic designer. It’ s Edward Tufte’s Visual Explanations. It’s “about pictures of verbs, the representation of mechanism and motion, process and dynamics, causes and effects, explanation and narrative.” I’ve always been fascinated with how data gets visualized, and the many ways we can depict it in order to understand it.When you fire a kiln, you are given data from the kiln - be it time,  a cone bending, color of heat, pyrometer reading, flame character, smoke, smell (oh how I love the smell of reduction!). But how do we visualize this data?

My first firing logs from electric kilns looked like a captains log…

10:30 1020 degrees…
1:45 pm 1600  degrees
4:30 2000 Cone 5 bending.

It allowed me to come close duplicating a good firing, but really the firing process was one decision at the beginning, and then waiting. The log was good because it matched how you entered a new ramp into the computer. But as far as visualizing what was happening in the kiln, it didn’t give me much.

When I started with gas firing in the little soda kiln, I bought John Britt’s book “High Fire Glazes” and the firing “graphs” were excellent examples in visualizing data. The book is a treasure trove of glaze recipes, but to me, those graphs were worth just as much as the recipes.

So, for my first gas soda firing,  I chose the firing schedule that was right for the glazes I was using, and I duplicated it in illustrator on a full sheet of paper. I then used it during the firing and plotted my temp and notes, right next to the “ideal” line. I was able to quickly, at a glance, visual what was happening in my kiln and compare it to what I wanted to have happen. I could see if I was stalling, firing too fast, getting close to needing to start redux. When I got close to temp, I could easily see if I was getting to temp at the ideal “ramp”. just by comparing the angle of the line.

The New Firing Log
Previous firings underneath

I’d print out a new one for every firing, and be able to compare firing to firing using these graphs.

For my next kiln, the current fast fire wood kiln, I figured I’d do the same.  I also added a space for notes under each time bracket, where I could detail what I did… added soda, started second fire box, etc.

Detail from the last firing.

All well and good, but I was presented with a another aspect of firing I hadn’t experienced before. The larger size of the kiln meant heat could be drastically different in different parts of the kiln. And I would notice that my top and bottom were 2-3 cones apart! The top being hottest. The graph sort breaks down when you need to add a third dimension to the visualization. It plots time/temp, but now we need to add space to that. Here’s where Michael comes in.

When I showed up at Professor Kline’s scene, I noted as many details in my head as possible. When visiting another potter’s space, I feel like I have my Sherlock Holmes hat on. I look at things and try to make sense of them, ask questions, and gather as much clay geekery as I can handle. When I first got there, I glanced at his firing log, it was “Captain’s Log” style. Time and temp written, with some notes. I wasn’t able to glance at it and understand “where” in the firing he was, until I converted temp to cone and saw he was sitting just below bisque temps. It was clear, the temp was rising, and that’s all that matters at this point.

A few hours later, closer to cone 7/8 bending, he did something brilliant. He stopped writing down captain’s log style, and drew a simple large cross in his log book and wrote down a different cone status in each corner.

I thought about what this meant, and when I couldn’t figure it out I had to ask. The four sections represented the four quadrants in his kiln. Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right. He said he generally only looks at the top and bottom cones and figures the middle will sort itself out.

It was a simple and beautiful representation of three dimensions of what was happening in his kiln, and allowed him to visualize it quickly, and make decisions. (”Cone Status” represents both temp AND time, or heat work rather, but still, there’s not need to graph those as the cones status encompasses both… leaving only the spacial dimension to deal with). We started feeding small kindling bits into one end to boost the heat in the bottom right. We’d switch which side we were stoking, to help move heat around as well.

Of course there are other nuggets of wisdom I picked up that day, but for some reason this is what stuck in my head the most.

Looking back at this blog post, I see I have written over 1000 words on such a simple thing as a firing log. I suppose I am a geek for these type of things, but on the other hand….

So much is written on what different techniques are used to create this or that effect: slow cooling; reduction cooling; oxidation soak, body reduction, carbon trapping; etc… but so little is written on how we get our kilns to do the things we want. How we visualize what is happening in there, will help us learn how to get our kilns to do those things.

You can download my firing graph in a .pdf format. The firing ramp is based on Reduction 2 firing (R2) schedule from John Britt’s book. Good for carbon trapping, shinos, and iron blue celadons.

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Even if you fire in an electric kiln, and even better if you only had a kiln sitter,  I think it would benefit any potter to grab/borrow a pyrometer and graph the temp of your kiln during your firing, for a better understanding of what’s going on in. Better to do this before you have problems, so you have  good a base line to start from.

What the hell happened in there?

Month of May 2010? where the heck are you headed? I was just getting to know you and all of a sudden you tell me you’re almost over? It started with helping Michael Kline stoke his kiln (I gottsa blog post stored in my head about that, but may soon be irrelevant), my birthday, LEAF festival to see Ozomatli with the family, followed the next week by firing my own kiln (another blog post I need to get out of my head). Before the kiln even had a chance to cool, I had to go to Seattle for some work, 8 days out west, some substantial poker winnings (for me anyways ;-), and back to NC to unload a kiln (ok I just partially unloaded it, I had a wholesale order of mugs that needed decaling ASAP, so I cherry picked them without even unstacking the shelves… the kiln is still not completely unloaded, and no kiln blues… hmmm coincidence, or maybe it was just a good firing). Sold one of my new sculptures on Etsy (sweet!), found $5 in my shorts pocket, and saw Michael Franti with Gina at the Orange Peel this past Monday (Gina patted him on the shoulder, and strangely, she hasn’t washed her hands since).

But all of that is nothing compared to Dodo Farts. If you make the pottery blog rounds, you may have seen mention of a little trade I made with Mr. Kyle Houser, who I pretty much consider the godfather of decals. Homefry was decaling his wood fired soda pots when I was still in diapers (or at least when I was just experimenting with them during my pre-soda era), and I am always on the hunt for a little gem from him and trying to learn everything his pots can teach me. This trade was no dissappointment. His mug was waiting for me when I got back from Seattle, and I’ve been using it for morning coffee since. Yeah, I am just like a rock and roll groupy, I won’t be washing that mug until I get a nice stain going on in that shino crackle. Thank you kind sir!

Loafers Glory (white stoneware), with 70/30 slip, Iron Ox wash,
a clear cone 6 commercial glaze over.
Electric fired.

Okey dokes… back to making pots. I need to stop getting side tracked, and focus on the bread and butter, ya know? Eleanor was asking in a comment what the slip recipe was and the who what now for using it. This past week I able to get a few small pieces done experimenting with the stencil/slip combo I used on the sculptures, but this time on functional pots.

The slip is the most basic of basics, one many potters use:

70 EPK
30 Neph Sy

10 Soda Ash (Dissolve in hot water first before mixing)

Yep… that it’s lol! The 70/30 is a studio standard, I just add the soda ash to make it crackle. It takes colorants really well, but my favorite was keeping it plain and using it over the white stoneware - ala white on white. I apply the stencil with a little water to a ‘leather hard’ or ‘not quite bone dry’ pot.  Then I paint on a coat or two of the slip. (not too thick on bone dry pots or it will weaken the pot). Wait for the slip to stiffen and then peel the stencil so I get a nice sharp edge. I then bisqued normally. After bisquing I brushed on a wash of straight Iron Oxide and then wiped it off. I just want the iron to catch in the crackles and in the hard edges of the stencil. Last came a coat of the clear commercial cone 6 glaze.

I have some other pots in the works with this same technique, but will be glazing them with my normal shinos to see how this technique does with the wood and soda firing. I can’t wait!

I’ve got a new article in Pottery Making Illustrated - it shows how to make stopperless salt and pepper shakers. This issue also has one of my favorite ceramic artists - Jeff Campana - giving away his secrets on cutting and re-assembling pots. Check it out here.

BTW - if you’ve missed some of the other articles I written for them, they republished them in a new book “Ceramic Projects: Forming Techniques”, you can purchase it in their bookstore.

This is the third one… actually this one was done pretty much at the same time that I was working on the one whose nose broke. This one I was pretty excited about too… not without it’s faults mind you - I went with decaled eyes and one of them ‘lifted’ and resulted in a somewhat cross eyed stare - and the cracks! damn you cracks on the shoulder! These cracks on this one and American Wonder, showed up right where I split the piece in half to hollow it out, and slipped back together. So I guess in the future I need to probably allow extra time under plastic in these areas.

The stencils in this one came out particularly nice I think. I’m also digging the crackled slip (I added some soda ash to the slip) that then got a dose of iron oxide wash. We are gonna see more of that in the future for sure, both on sculptures and pots!

The last of the 4 (mr. broken nose) won’t be posted for awhile. I have a “piece” that needs finishing before I can consider it done.

I’m posting these in a sort of chronilogical order of when they were made, even though they were all fired together, I think there is a natural progression. So this one, American Wonder, was done right after the one I posted yesterday. I think you can tell I was more concerned with getting something anatomically correct, rather than mucking about.  And yes, I didn’t sound too excited yesterday when describing these busts. Maybe I wasn’t too excited about “Warm”, but I am/was pretty dang excited about this one. Sure, there is some room for self analysis and improvement, despite having  some eyelashes  missing in one eye (broke off in boneware state), and there is a crack in her shoulder (dang cracks!), I am pretty excited about how “American Wonder” came out. Glazed pretty much the same way that “Warm” was… craftrobo stencils with colored slips and underglazes, bisqued, then a iron oxide wash, clear cone 6 glaze + sprayed cone 6 commercial glazes, then a cone 04 decal firing. Everything is electric. The clay body is loafers glory (a white stoneware), not the greatest sculpture clay, but it’s what I use for my pots so it’s what was on hand.

A sculpture, originally uploaded by mudstuffing.

The sculptures have been pretty much finished, came out of the warm kiln this morning. Not super excited about them, but not unhappy either. I’m learning and gaining experience, seeing what is working and what is not. Finding out it’s not only a process making them, but it’s one big long process. One piece doesn’t really end the process, it’s actually continued in the next piece I suppose…

Anyways, the process story behind this lady is…

She was done right after making the busts of my kids. I started out wanting to do something stylized rather than realistic and anatomically correct… flattening features etc, however as I started working, I kept sliding back towards a more realistic bust, which sorta left it all in limbo - not really successful on either end of the anatomically correct/incorrect. But I hollowed it out any ways and decided to use it as a test piece for experimenting with the surface treatments.

The surface treatments started with some stencils and slips on boneware, and some underglazes as well. Bisqued, and then treated with an iron oxide wash. A clear glear sprayed over it along with sprayin a few commercial cone 6 glazes. Fired to cone 6. Then toner decals applied and fired again to cone 04.

My whole idea with to develop mutliple layers of embellishment, from the clay body up. Which it does I think, successfully. I don’t think I am digging the glossy clear glaze, I would have prefered a matt, however the gloss what more reliable with the toner decals, and the matt glaze tends to get milky where it’s think and I didn’t want to risk the milkyness. But looking back, maybe a matte would have been best. I also went with solid eyes, and painted the pupils with under glazes.

I’ll be posting photos of the rest as the week goes on.