The second post in the October woodfire saga, which began with loading and firing Gary the Groundhog. When I arrived in Wisconsin on November 3, Matt had already unbricked the kiln. We quickly got to the business at hand: photos, unloading and examining pots, and cleaning shelves.

Front of the kiln. 10 is down and 11 is soft on the bottom, and 9’s way down on top. Hot enough! We didn’t have quite as many pieces as we’d have liked, so everything got pushed back as far as possible, to keep the stack tight, though starting a little farther back in the kiln.

I don’t quite recall Matt’s comment, but it was something to the extent that the shelf was all boogered up. Everything you see was stuck to it. Luckily they are shelves that scrape easily, so cleanup was quick!

The first stack is out, and Matt squats in the firebox as I angle for shots of the next stack. The kiln floor is a ways above the firebox,which (mostly) kept embers off the kiln floor. Toward the end, we had an ember bed birmed from the bottom of the stoke door up to the kiln floor, three feet away, and the stoke door was sucking in all the air.

The second stack back. The kiln was loaded one piece at a time, wadding as we went. The arch limited the height of our top shelf, and a lot of creative stacking was employed. The great thing about loading with Matt was that we loaded some of each others’ work, and both made some creative decisions that benefited the other. It’s easy to see the possibilities for wad marks and flashing in pieces that I haven’t been staring at for weeks already.

Some of the methods employed: stacking pieces, wadding sideways, wadding things on top of things, “hanging” wads between pieces, loading pieces upside down, loading pieces right side up, using several small wads, one big wad, a circle-coil wad… the options go on. And every wad makes a wad mark and flashing, which means that decisions made in loading have a definite and profound impact on the marks on individual surfaces. The creative stacking at the top of the kiln here was because we’d used up all of Matt’s tall cups.

This is one of my wallforms. It was the one farthest forward in the kiln. The clay’s modified with custer feldspar, which made it a bit stickier for the ash. I love the range from yellow to red to blue, and birmed some ash up around it, hoping for some crusty purple. The wallforms went into the kiln green, though, so they pulled away from the ash.

And here’s the back of the kiln. Stacking flat pieces was an effective way of getting height. Next time, more flat pieces are in order, as are more tall ones. We softened cone 6 in back. This was Gary’s third firing; on the previous firing, they only dropped cone 1.

These are the pods and cups that came out of the kiln. My Malcolm’s shino crawled at the drop of a hat – I made the glaze around Easter, and think that’s related, since it didn’t crawl before. Evaporated soda ash? Or I just didn’t clean the cups – they spent months in a box – well enough before glazing. Who knows. I added glaze and am refiring a couple of them. The clay body of the pods came out great. I’m excited that the studio clays woodfire well.

These are the wallforms and bodyforms that came out of the kiln, stacked haphazardly in the afternoon sun. The unload weather was beautiful!

A favorite spot on the interior of one of my pieces. You’ll have to wait for more – but they’re shot!

We made pizzas for dinner. Mine had a stuffed crust and was in the style of Leach or Cardew – I forget which Jaime said.

Matt made more of a Voulkos composition. See the ricotta chunks? Half Acre lager, from a local Chicago brewery, was enjoyed. And ceramic documentary videos were watched. Fun was had by all.