
I hesitate to post this because it was also painted over by the instructor, but a lot of the work in it is my own soooooo. Anyway this is what I’m up to on Wednesdays now. #seekingjoy #artwork #love

I’m going to use this blog to keep track of my progress in the kiln and ceramics. I feel like this might be a little embarrassing, but we all have to start somewhere. Additionally, I’ve found that some of my problems or decorating experiments are often hinted at by others, but never fully explained. If keeping track can help a future ceramicist, that’d be great. If you are an experienced ceramicist, I wrote questions for you in bold italics. 🙂
Unloading this morning. I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t fall back asleep. I waited until the sun peeked out to unload the kiln. I was mostly dreading it.
Yesterday I’m using a gas kiln. Finally, I figured out how to have a great oxidation fire. The entire firing was super clean and hot. The cones bent, I shut the kiln up and turned off the burner. The MAIN burner. I forgot to turn off the little knob that controls the smaller flames. So my kiln sat in reduction for HOURS. When I figured out my mistake I opened the damper for a bit to see waves of carbon pouring out. I shut the damper due to immediate clinking and sat on my bed for awhile staring at the wall. What I came up with is this: I can’t control what happened, I’m glad it happened on a test load filled with not so great items and not a future load of beautiful things I spent more time on. I know it could have been much worse, I was just bummed.
Fast forward this am. Opened the kiln, not TOO bad. A LOT of color seems to be missing from some of the wares. This could also be from not enough layering (I don’t have dipping glazes set up yet).
Firing temp: Cone 5
Notes:
Glaze Combinations:
Overall I think this was a great learning load, but not a lot of product that I’m thrilled with. I feel humbled and grateful for it. I have a lot of work to do and I am not a master potter (must keep telling myself this). What do you do with bad ceramic work?
Thoughts:
Every load I am going to photograph the best and the worst of the load. I think it will be fun to see how my standards change over the years.
Best of the load
Worst of the load