10%
Remember the old saying “90% of the iceberg is below water?” The other 10% is surely beautiful to look at.
This applies to my work also, when people see me throwing pottery on the wheel. It’s so magical to watch the clay come alive and take shape. It only took me a few minutes to make a bowl, or vase. Then they look puzzled, and ask the ultimate question, “how much is that worth when finished?” Yes, the unknown is “when finished??” They never get to see all the other steps involved in finishing the work.
90%
.Throwing is the magical part, then there is trimming, drying, cleaning, bisque firing, cleaning again, waxing, decorating, glazing, spraying one to 4 layers of different glazes, and cleaning the waxed area. Now it is ready to go into the kiln for the glaze firing.
I glaze fire my work to high temperatures 1300 Celsius, or 2300+ Fahrenheit. Getting ready to fire the wood kiln takes a lot of prep work, the most important is getting the right wood ready, cut, and dried. I use pallets that I collect around industrial sites, load my van up and bring them home. They need to be disassembled, cut to the right length, and stored. I use soft wood like pine, and hardwoods like oak, and maple. The selection of wood makes a great deal of difference in the firing and result of the work.
Before loading the kiln, the shelves have to be cleaned, usually with a grinder, then I spray kiln wash to protect them and the work from sticking to the shelves. Loading the work into the kiln takes about 4-6 hours. I divide the space in the kiln as to bottom, middle, and top. Also the back two rows of the kiln, and front two rows. The hot and cold spots are very important as well. All this knowledge allows me to plan where the best place to put each piece is. My copper red glazes do best in the middle/top of the kiln, away protected from direct flames. My Shino glaze does best facing direct flames, in the hottest part of the kiln, at the top. My wood ash glazes do best in the bottom/middle of the kiln, at the top they run.
I usually load the kiln one day, preheat it overnight very slowly, and then fire it the next day. The firing involves feeding the fireboxes with wood every few minutes. Because I use thin boards from the pallets, they burn quickly, and need constant supervision. You get into a rhythm of feeding the wood into the fireboxes, alternating back and forth, while slowly watching the temperatures rise. There are different stages in the firing cycle, preheating, starting the fire in one firebox, then later starting the second firebox around 600-700 F. I monitor the atmosphere in the kiln from oxidation to reduction. I can control these steps by adjusting the damper in the chimney, and the back pressure in the kiln. There are many more minor adjustments to be made throughout the firing. When the final temperatures are reached, and cone 11is down, I seal up the kiln by closing the damper, and the two fire boxes with bricks and fiberfrax. All this usually takes me about 16 - 20 hours.
After all this, I wait four days for the kiln to naturally cool down slowly on its own. If I try to rush the cooling down, a lot of glazes start to craze. I have learned many times the hard way to be patient, and wait. When the kiln is finally cooled down, the anticipating excitement is like Christmas morning. You know there are gifts, but not sure if it’s what you really want? It’s rare that I do great firings, mostly good ones, and a few terrible firings. You can’t control everything in a wood kiln, there is a lot of intuition, luck, and the kiln gods at work in each firing.
In each firing there are few gems that are better than you could have imagined or hoped for, they are the gifts the kiln gods gave you. The majority of the work is good, and then there are the rejects, what went wrong. I quickly forget about the great work that came out of the firing, but get frustrated as to what went wrong, what can I learn to improve for the next firing.
Pottery is a cycle of work, start to finish, with many steps in between, you only got to see maybe 10%.