Category Archives: kiln firing

Poetry and Madness 8.

Posted on by

I have spent the last two days firing my kiln here in the Porcelain Residency. 30 hours of my life that was hopefully well spent? Starting at 4:00 am on Tuesday and finishing at 9:00 am on the following day – Wednesday.

I put a bit of time and effort preparing, splitting and stacking wood, so that everything would go as smoothly as possible. But, as always, the best laid plans…

One of the things that I have no control over is the weather. It rained heavily for a lot of the time. The monsoon has arrived! ‘Uji’ in Korean. Luckily, the kiln shed is well built and water proof, as far as it goes, but it’s an open, well ventilated shed. The kiln is situated on the edge of the building and the heavy rain can blow in sideways. There has been some discussion of adding a verandah to this side of the building. It will probably happen in due course, but I dare say that I won’t see it in my lifetime. It will have to be presented into next year’s forward estimates, be considered by the city governors. Proceed through the various stages of process, eventually approved for quotes to be sent out in 2028, then contractors selected, contracts developed and then reconsidered, re-drafted, re-estimated, re-quoted, new contractors selected. Approval granted for fiscal year 2030! 

Delays, holdups, bankruptcies, heritage listing investigations, archaeological contingencies. All this just for an awning!

You may laugh. But I was first asked to come here and build this little kiln 8 years ago. Later, I was even sent progress shots of the foundations being dug. But the catastrophic bush fires in 2019, then covid in ’20/’21, and various other events intervened and the kiln was eventually built in 2024.  Such is life.

Anyway. I’m here now, in the here and now! Good thing that I began this project in 2016! 

Like climbing ladders, it’s the sort of thing that it is not recommended that old, fat, balding, grey haired guys over 60 should be doing. They should know better and get it out of their system in their mid-life-crisis years! However, at 74 I’m still climbing ladders as well as building wood kilns in foreign climes and doing 30 hour wood firings, well past my use-by date. What went wrong?

I have a friend, who I admire enormously, who has only recently given up doing 100 hour wood firings in his mid 70’s, but he did have helpers!  

Janine and I usually fire more or less alone, with Janine’s assistance coming and going through the day. We have developed a firing schedule where I start the kiln off at 4:00 am and Janine comes down with some toast and coffee at 8 or 9. We fire through the day and into the evening, through into the night. I have found that I can do a 15 to 18 hour firing this way without missing a nights sleep. Working from early till late, and going to bed on the same day as I woke up, so that I don’t feel ‘wreaked’ the next day. With luck, I can see myself being able to continue potting and wood firing in this way for a long time.

Because these 14 to 18 hr firings are relatively short, compared to what some other well known potters do, there isn’t the kind of ash buildup with the glossy, runny ash glaze, that some people attribute to wood fired pots. So I have developed a range of clay bodies and glazes that look their best in these shorter, and more manageable wood firings. Ideally suited to domestic wares, with colour variation and flashing on the surface. Interestingly, even some of the pots from my friends 100 hour firings, the ones at the very back of the kiln, come out with surfaces not too dissimilar to my 15 hour pots. Only a very well educated eye can tell.  Having said all that, the pots at the front of the setting in my short firings do get a lot of ash on them, but that space in the kiln is relatively small in my kiln, so there are not too many of them in my repertoire.

This is a pot from the front of the setting that was in my last firing here of just 14 hrs. This is as much ash as I need to see and deal with in the cleaning of the foot and rim.

I tried 30 and 50 hour firings in my youth, but decided that the returns aesthetically for my kind of domestic pots weren’t worth the bodily wear and tear on me – even then! So this firing is a major effort for me. I can only do it here in this kiln with assistance from some of the other residents. I really need someone to keep me awake through the night. I was fortunate to have a two helpers to look after the kiln for a couple of hours between midnight and 2:00 am. Hours 20 to 22,  so that I could have a nap to get me through the night. Thank you!

Luckily, the truck load of oak wood turned up just in time. One arrived the day before and another during the firing. It is very fresh! to the point of still have birds sitting on its branches 🙂

I say luckily, because we ended up using about 2/3 of it. Along with some well seasoned old pine. Blending about 1 to 4 pine to oak. When I tried burning just the oak, it was too slow to burn well. It needed the very flammable pine to keep it burning fiercely. After 1150oC, wet wood isn’t a problem, in fact it is even better for reduced firings. 

The chemistry is too complex to deal with here, but in essence, Water dissociates to a hydrogen ion and an OH radical. These both eventually reform, back to water, along the way having cleaned up the atmosphere a little. The energy required to crack the water is such that the fire needs to be above 1100 degrees Centigrade to get a positive return. The chemical action still takes place below this temperature, down to about 800 C, but there is a negative energy return.

Using water vapour to create an energy rich and highly desirable hydrogen gas from carbon monoxide is called the water-gas shift. It takes energy to do the shift, but the return is equal to or greater than the input. from 134 btu per cu. ft.  of gas to  156 btu per cu. ft.  of gas produced under ideal conditions. Enough!   I don’t want to loose readers by boring you with too much reality. One person I spoke to was amazed. Having been told that wood needed to be seasoned and very well dried for up to 5 years before burning in a kiln. And that is true for some wood in some kilns, but it is clearly not universal.

So this truck load of wood was very freshly felled and full of sap, This made it slow to combust until we got it up to 1000oC. Which we did by using a bit of dry pine mixed in. No problem, because I had sorted, split and stacked enough dry pine – just in case – a couple of days before. I was very pleased that the air temperature dropped down with the rain over night and made the conditions more comfortable, although it was quite humid, it was also quite cool. As we only need to stoke the kiln every half hour. There is a lot of sitting around doing very little. I’ve heard it described as ‘Laid Back Wood Firing! in French as ‘Le gran feu au bois sans effort’. and Korean as ‘ Pyeon-anhan jangjagbul piugi’ – relaxed wood firing!

I spent the ‘dull’ time teaching my helpers some chemistry and physics – in disguise of course! I made it invisible and more palatable by dressing it up as anecdotes about growing a forest and my choice of fuel, stoking, identifying atmosphere, pitfalls of temperature measurement and glaze colour development. I don’t think that they noticed. Notes were taken, kiln logs recorded, references ‘googled’, images examined and techniques demonstrated. The time passed quicker and I stayed awake. Everyone wins.

The kiln at full fire in reduction. No one can tell!  I’m very pleased about that. Silent and clean.

We fired through the night with the rain until 10 am. Then amazingly, it cleared up for us, just in time to get back down to the residence for a well earned shower and some desperately needed sleep. 

Poetry and Madness 6. – First firing unpacked

Posted on by

We have just unpacked the first of the wood fired kiln firings. It didn’t turn out well. I was disappointed, but well prepared for the result. I had spent the first month here making pots from one particular clay body, it turns out that it isn’t at all suitable for my purpose. Everything that I made from it either cracked in the bisque firing, or if it survived the bisque, it either had invisible, hair-line cracks that I couldn’t see, or new cracks were formed which opened up in the glaze. So everything that I made in the first month has gone to the kiln gods, all cracked, sometimes spectacularly so in the glaze. A tragic combination of several things combined .

I’m reminded that a bad workman blames his tools!  I can’t get away with that. I’m fully responsible.

I had to make an installation of ‘3 inseparable pots’!  

However, there were some nice pieces in the kiln, but not enough to justify a show. I had 6 large jars and 12 smaller ones, half of each cracked. I’ll need a better firing next time round to get the bulk of the work for a show. Luckily, all of that ’sus’ clay is now gone. All my remaining jars are made from a different batch of sericite. It turns out that I’m the first and only user of that first batch of clay. There are only 3 bags left. No one else will touch it now! Bummer batch. 

Although this is a set-back, it wont stop me trying to get a good result.

You have to concentrate on the positive, look for the up-side, even if it is a little difficult to see in a dark place. I’m lucky to have got what I have. The forms are good, elegant, open mouthed, small footed, well rounded, and the glaze well melted. The glaze is a mix of the local sericite porcelain stone of the clay body and ash. A believe that it is a very authentic approach to a cultural icon. My interpretation of an ancient concept of aesthetics. My pots are not pure white and unadorned, but rather boldly showing their wood fired heritage. A good but limited outcome. No hammer needed here just now.

Only half the work in the kiln was mine, as I shared the space in the kiln with the other residency artists. They were waiting for me to arrive to fire the wood kiln, as they were keen to have the experience included in their time here. No one else here at the moment wood fires. Just me. They have all seen the kiln standing there and wanted to experience a firing of it. Most of them are making hand built sculptures, some quite delicate. They wanted to limit the firing to lower stoneware temperatures, in case their work slumped. I want to fire a bit higher and longer. We agreed on cone 8 over, starting cone 9. We only reduced lightly to minimise the smoke and the chance of bloating the larger dark, irony clay sculptures. I stopped at cone 9. Next firing will be all my work, so I will fire hotter and longer. Hopefully using local Korean Oak hard wood. That is if it gets delivered before I have to leave? If not, it will be another dirty pine firing. I only have 3 weeks remaining, so fingers crossed!

I just managed to fit this firing in for the previous residents. One left the next morning and hasn’t seen the results, only photos that we sent to her. 2 others waited the extra days to stay for the unpacking and then drove off with their hot pots. Only one of those scheduled to leave that day stayed on to help with the cleaning up. Always the same person! There are just 3 of us left here now, with the new residents arriving in the next couple of days. I leave in just 3 weeks, along with the artist from Taiwan who is next door.  Almost a clean sweep.I have plenty of work to pack the kiln again, but there isn’t any ‘Korean oak’ hard wood in stock. I’m waiting for a new delivery. I don’t want to fire with pine again. It’s filthy, it isn’t the life I want to live. I can’t be proud of firing like that. Making huge plumes of black smoke from my kiln. I know that it is my particular problem. I own it. No one else here that I know thinks like this, everyone who wood fires makes smoke. But I’d feel better if I fired with minimal smoke. At home in Australia, I have also fitted a scrubber to wash out a lot of the PM 2.5 carcinogenic carbon particulates as well. Again, it’s my philosophical issue. I won’t call it a problem again. It shouldn’t be thought of as a problem. It’s an issue. An issue that needs to be recognised, accepted, and dealt with. Eliminating pollution should be normalised at every point of our day to day experience. I can only do my bit and promote my research to as wide an audience as I can reach. The solution lies in community action, and whole of society engagement.

I am fully aware that potters kilns are not even equal to a pimple on the arse of World War Two, when it comes to the amount of carbon pollution we generate. But nevertheless. It all adds up. Getting rid of the ever increasing number of diesel 4WD SUV’s would be a lot more effective. They are scheduled to be phased out in the next couple of decades, starting in 2035, or so I’ve read. 

Janine and I have never owned a diesel, and don’t ever intend to. We replaced our petrol engined cars when they came up for renewal with electric models. We now drive as well as fire all our electric kilns, on our own solar. 

I’ve been telling people here that this is how we live and they stare at me as if I’m lying to them. “NO! That isn’t possible!” Well actually yes, it is, and I’m doing it. Here are my photos. This is my web site. Here is my card. That is my book in the shop over there. Check it out. It is possible. One resident said “No Way!” my reply was ‘Yes Way!” He laughed.

Don’t let people who are poorly informed by facebook, with no real knowledge, or worse, possible ulterior motives, dissuade you. Look for yourself. Do your research! False information and lies are being disseminated by questionable actors in the media all the time, saying how we can’t stop using, coal, oil and gas, even while many countries are now successfully producing over half of their energy from renewables. There is steady progress. Until a few years ago, they were still burning coal briquettes here in this little village for cooking. Progress is happening, but it is glacially slow. No one wants to make the change until it is forced on them. Because change may affect profits? Analysis that I’ve read says that not doing anything will cost us all way more than fixing it.

Children and the elderly are currently dying of heat stroke in France and Europe. Flash floods in Spain, fire storms in California. Glacial melt causing a massive landslide obliterating a Swiss village. All made worse by carbon pollution and global heating.

Crisis, What crisis? We need to do more faster. If not now. When?

So the smoke from my kiln is probably immaterial in the bigger picture, but I still believe that every effort matters. We all need to do what we can.

Poetry and Madness 4, The Firing

Posted on by

I have just done to first of my two planned wood kiln firings. We packed the kiln with a mix of all the residents work on Tuesday. Everyone turned up with their foam boxes of precious wares to be committed to the kiln. It’s always a bit of a dilemma packing other peoples work into the wood kiln, or any kiln for that matter. I have an idea of how I would like to pack the kiln, and if it were just my work, it would all go to plan – more or less. However, when working with a group, there is such a diversity of shapes and sizes, all bets are off, and we just have to make the best pack that we can with what has turned up.

I think that we did pretty well, combining my big round moon jars with 4 foot high sculptures and shelves of domestic items. I have to keep in mind how the flames will pass thorough all this work, so I’m constantly mindful of not just the shapes of the pots, but equally, and perhaps more importantly, the shapes of the gaps between the works that will determine how the kiln fires with regards to even heat distribution. I think that we did pretty well. 

The chamber was all packed with pots by early afternoon. There was a little delay before finishing, as the film crew that made a documentary about me and my interest in Moon Jars, when I was here last year, have returned to make a 2nd doco about my residency here. I didn’t know anything about this until the day before, when I was told that they’d be here. They spent half a day filming me at work in the studio last week and are now back to get footage of the packing, then firing. I can only suppose that they’ll be returning to film the unpacking as well? I’m not involved, only to the extent that I’m in the film. It has all been organised by the Porcelain Museum Director and the Residency Manager, as a way of promoting Museum? I gather that it’s for television and local promotion for tourism? Not too sure? I’m completely in the dark with so little language. I just do what I’m asked to do on the day. 

So this brings me back to the kiln packing. The kiln was almost full when they arrived, so I had to unpack the top shelf and repack it for the camera – 6 times! All from different angles, close up and distance. “That’s great, just one more time please!” etc. Then there was the interview. My talking head close-up, and then “could we just repeat that with a distance view? Now we’ll use 3 cameras, left, right and just off centre. No don’t look at the camera,  just straight ahead over there. Talk to the wall! OK, but the truck just drove past, so we’ll do that again.” After an hour of this I had completely forgotten what I had planned to say and I really don’t know which parts will be cut together, so I hope that it makes some sort of sense in the final cut?

While they were filming, my colleagues were measuring and stacking wood for the firing, then wheel barrowing it over from the wood store to the kiln site. They all worked hard and made up for the lack of attendance the day before. The last bit of filming was me bricking up the door and smearing the clay slip over the cracks to seal it and make it more or less air tight, ready for firing. We arranged to start the fire at 6 am the next day.

I woke up at 3:45, I knew that i wouldn’t go back to sleep, so got up and made my way to the kiln and lit it by 4:00 am. I really like the quiet of the very early morning, pitch black and silent, an hour later, there is a pale glow in the sky and the bird song starts up. minimal at first, just a couple of tweets, but slowly builds to a crazy racket of intensity, then it subsides again as they all depart for their day of foraging. 

One by one my colleagues turn up. First is Yoju, from the studio next to mine. She is a night bird, and has been up all night working. Then the others drift in. We have all brought something to share for breakfast. There is some discussion and a general plan for the day is developed. As we plan to fire through to about midnight. Yoju and I will take a break in the middle of the day for a quick snooze, so that we will be OK for the late finish. The firing goes well and I feel that it is in safe hands when I depart at 2:00. I sleep for 1 1/2 hours and wake refreshed. So good to go for the late night finish.

We ran out of oak 1/2 way through, as we knew we would, so fired on 2/3 pine and 1/3 oak until we ran out, then finished on just pine. The pine made a lot of smoke at times. Not at all to my liking, but what else could I do? I didn’t want to oxidise to reduce smoke and ruin 2 months of my work and of the others also. So we made smoke just like a local! Far from Ideal. Mr Choi the Residency manager turn up for a lot of the 2nd half of the firing. He told me that he had finally got a reply from the wood supplier, that the new delivery of oak will be here  next week. Hopefully in time for my next firing? No one else has these philosophical issues about smoke, pollution, global warming, etc. PM2.5 particles are more or less unknown here. It’s my issue and I have to deal with it. So I do as much as I can without being difficult to my hosts and boring to my colleagues. I state my concerns and leave it at that.

The firing finishes up at 10pm. 18 hours total, 2 hours earlier than I had scheduled for. But the kiln was firing easily and going up well with no real effort. Perfect. Just the way I would like it to be. So I didn’t interfere. I could have closed the damper and stalled it, but for what? Everything seemed to be good and 18 hours is long enough, 20 wouldn’t make a lot of difference, as most of the work is glazed. My next wood kiln firing in 2 weeks time will be only my work, as 3 of the residents are leaving here tomorrow, and another is away. So the next firing will only really be my work and mostly unglazed outside, so I can do what I like.

After we burnt down and closed everything up, opened the air damper in the chimney, and cleaned any left over wood from around the kiln, we all adjourned to my studio for a bottle of Champagne, some nibbles and a de-brief on the days events. We finished up at 11.30.

I slept very well.

These Busy Autumn Days

Posted on by

This week we have been working on several projects simultaneously, a few hours of each job alternately over the course of the day.

I start at 6:00 am each morning straight after I wake up, I walk over to the pottery and switch on the electric kiln. I need to start early as the days are short at this time of year. The kiln starts it’s firing program running on the battery supply of yesterdays sunshine. The kiln only draws a small amount of energy at the start of the firing, but ramps up over the day, such that it draws the maximum power at the end of the firing. I want the firing to finish when there is still some good sunshine available. 2 to 3 pm is a good time to finish.

I have programmed the glaze firing schedule to take 8 1/2 hours, more or less. Each of the electric kilns has a different and individual capacity to achieve any particular temperature rise at high temps. Depending on the age of the electrical elements. As the elements get older, they loose power, so the firing takes longer at high temperatures. One of the kilns, the big fibre kiln, has brand new elements that I have only just wound and installed, so is capable of 200+ degrees C per hour. However, one of the smaller kilns is quite old and the elements are pretty much worn out, so can only just manage 30 degree per hour at the top temps.

I like the firings to finish in the afternoon while there is still sufficient sun shine to recharge the battery before sunset. I’ve been doing a lot of firings this last couple of months. Firing my 20 or so moon jars, first to bisque, then stoneware glaze, and finally to 750oC for lustre, gold or enamel firings. To make sure that I stay within my energy creation budget limits, I only fire one glaze kiln each day. However, I can fire two small bisque kilns or two gold firings, and still have plenty of solar power for everything else. I was recently given a very old, and very large ‘Hilldav’ brick lined electric kiln from my lovely friend Robin. Thank you Robin! It certainly drains everything out of the system when it is fired. It needs 33 amps on 3 phases to run. That’s a lot of juice! Not many potters have that much power available in their studios. I save firing this kiln for times when I need such a big capacity to fit in larger work. When I got it, it has a broken door lock, that needed welding back on, it also needed a decent bit of work to control the rampant rust, repairs to the top, new insulation over the arch and work on the left front lifting lug and a new door seal. But it’s all good now.

On the left, the small and large fibre kilns. On the right the Big Hilldav and small Rhode brick kilns

While the kiln fires automatically, We get out in the garden early, straight after breakfast to beat the heat. There is so much that needs to be done at this time of the year. Autumn is the time for a big ‘end-of-summer’ clean out and replanting. The compost heap is now full to the brim again, but it will soon rot down to make more space for ongoing additions.

After lunch it is often too hot for us to be working out side, if it is a sunny day, so we retreat inside. Sometimes to help our son with his fruit cordial business, by peeling fruit, or processing herbs. Yesterday, Janine and I spent the afternoon outside on the verandah, Janine stripping lemon myrtle leaves from their branches, and me milling them down to a fine powder, before freezing them to preserve the lively, zesty, lemon fragrance.

Lemon Myrtle and Lemon Verbena are both deciduous, so the leaves need to be collected now and the plants cut back, ready to over-winter, before they re-shoot in the spring. They are hung under the verandah to dry. There is always plenty of citrus fruit ripening over the winter, for citrus fruit cordials. We grow 16 different varieties of citrus trees in the citrus grove. However, we need to collect, dry, mill and freeze the Myrtle and Verbena leaves into powder, now, while we have them, to fill out the flavour profile, as needed, when that time comes, later in winter. 

Milling dried Lemon Myrtle leaves into a fine powder, before freezing it to preserve the Zing!

After dinner I made an apple tart tartin, as we have plenty of apples at the moment.

An beautiful autumn desert.

Wood fired Australian Moon Jars

Posted on by

I fired my wood fired kiln a week or so ago. It was a very good firing. I’m quite pleased with the results. Of course there were a few 2nds, as there always are, however, on balance. I got a lot of very nice pieces out of the kiln. The clay bodies worked very well and I achieved a lovely red/orange flashing colour on the clay.

So that was very nice to see , and I look forward to developing those clay bodies into the future, as they are exactly what I like about wood fired pots, unglazed outside and fire-flashed. All the domestic pots in this firing were raw glazed. ie. glazed when they were still wet or damp from the potters wheel, and then dried out and fired without a bisque firing. A raw glazed firing starts off very slow and gentle, just like a bisque firing, because it is. Then it ends like a stoneware glaze firing. It saves a lot of energy and work in packing, and unpacking, the kiln twice.

However, only certain glazes can be adapted to work as raw glazes. The recipe needs to contain about 20% of clay or thereabouts. This is required to allow the glaze to shrink onto the pot as it itself shrinks as it dries out. Otherwise the glaze will flake off. There is a particular quality of high clay glazes. They contain a lot of alumina. This means that some glaze chemistries, that require high silica content cannot be made very easily. The are a few work-arounds like adding bentonite instead of kaolin, but there are limits to far you can take this successfully. I’m working on it.

Some of the most interesting pots in the firing were my Australian versions of Korean influenced ‘Moon Jars’. The moon jar is a significant cultural object in Korea. They have been made for centuries for the Royal Family, and more recently are quite sought after in contemporary Korean middle class homes.

Interestingly, the porcelain clay for these ancient cultural masterpieces was mined in a very small village in the central north of what is now South Korea. This is the very same village where I have been going to study and carry out some of my research for the past decade in Korea. I’m honored to have a few of my porcelain pieces on show in the Porcelain Museum on site there. It’s such an inspiring place and the single stone, weathered sericite, porcelain clay is amazing.

Having worked there on a number of occasions now. I can’t help but be inspired by these magnificent objects. I can’t bring myself to make copies of them, it wouldn’t fitting for me, sitting here in Australia, as an Australian, appropriating their finest cultural heritage. And what’s more, probably doing it badly.

But I can’t resist the temptation to have a go at a big round jar influenced by the Korean moon jars. so I made my own Australian version. This series of homages are not made from porcelain, nor are they spherical and white – glowing like the full moon. I have made mine as a different kind of ‘moon’ jar. I threw them in white stoneware, coated them in black slip, and then again in white slip, so that I could do some sgraffito carving through the surface. A technique that I have become fond of in recent years.

During the long, high temperature, wood kiln firing, the combination of ash and the slip coatings combined to turn the surface a lovely green/grey/black/white/brown/orange, depending on where they were placed in the two different chambers for each of the firings. They bear no resemblance to the big, fat, round, glowing, white Korean porcelain full moon jars. These are definitely my own interpretation. They couldn’t possibly be confused as culturally appropriated local copies!

Full Moon jar

Moon shine vine. Decoration by Janine King.

Phases of the moon Jar

Phases of the Moon Jar II

Clouds over the moon

Phases of the moon III

Moon Flower jar

Man on the moon jar.

A very different ‘riff’ on the subject of the Moon Jar

Winter Wood Kiln Firing

Posted on by

It is quiet, eerily quiet. 

The only noise that I can hear is the sound of the ice under my feet crunching as I walk down to the pottery. It is 5.00 am and pitch black this wintery morning. No stars, so there must be a lot of cloud? It’s too early even for the birds to be stirring and beginning to make their first tentative calls.

I love these early starts. The air is very cold and crisp. My noise hurts in the minus degrees air. fortunately there is no wind, so I’m lucky. It could be colder. 

I’m fumbling trying to light a match wearing gloves, but I do it, and the little kindling fire slowly spreads and comes to life. There is a strong draught in the firebox because I had the kiln lit and firing yesterday evening through into the night, preheating all the raw glazed pots, I have to be careful not to heat the kiln too fast, as the raw pots may still have a small amount of water in them that can easily turn to steam, expand and blow the pot up. This would be a disaster, not because I might loose a single pot, but because the explosion would spread shrapnel like fragments and even larger chunks of rubble through out the kiln chamber and bits would land in almost every open bowl-like form. I’d need to stop and unpack the whole kiln and start again.

By staying up last night keeping a small kindling fire going, I had the kiln up to just above 100 degrees centigrade, sufficient to dry all the pots out thoroughly. I preheat into the dark, leave it to sit and sweat while I have dinner and then I’m back down here to keep the fire alive for a few more hours. This gentle start to the firing is very important and can’t be rushed. I’m used to sitting in the dark, all my wood kiln firings start and end in the dark.

The firing goes well, everything is prepared in advance, all the different sizes of wood, from kindling through floor wood onto hob logs, it’s all cut and stacked next to the kiln. I have my tea making gear ready. Thick, warm, long, leather gauntlet gloves, initially to keep my hands warm, but later to stop them getting too warm or even burnt while stoking. A few hours later, Janine and Len arrive, I’m just about ready to go to hobs with the stoking and shortly afterwards to start reduction. Janine cooks breakfast for us, we have bacon and eggs, then toast and marmalade with coffee. A great start to a good firing. I love my home made marmalade!

I stoke the fire box, keeping it full  to the top, and this generates a consistent level of reduction. I initially use some thinner sticks of 75mm up to 100 mm. diameter, stoking every 15 mins, but as the kiln get hotter, I soon move on to the heavier thicker logs of 100 to 150 mm diameter, and eventually up to 200mm diameter. these burn consistently over a longer period, so I only have to stoke every 30 to 45 mins. The biggest and thickest logs can burn for up to 1 hour, keeping a steady reduction atmosphere and a gentle temperature rise. This is kept steady and even for the following 10 hours, while maintaining a pretty clean chimney. Something that I’m proud of. Minimising any smoke and using my afterburner and scrubber on top of the chimney to minimise any PM 2.5 particulates escaping to the environment. 

I have spent the past few years experimenting in new ways to pack and fire this kiln. There are so many variables, but a steady reduction atmosphere is a necessary constant for good clay and glaze colour. I fire for about 14 or so hours. I finish up around 8 pm, but need to hang around for another hour for the burning down process, before closing the damper in the chimney. I will leave the scrubber running for another hour while I go up to the house for a glass of wine to celebrate and a bit of chat. Later, I return to the pottery to check on everything, switch off the scrubber pump and all the lights and lock up. I have to leave the scrubber water pump running for an extra hour or so, to make sure that it doesn’t over heat from the hot air coming up the chimney during cooling. I don’t want to melt the delicate brass spray nozzle. 

A while ago, I made enquiries about getting a stainless steel version of the same fitting, but the guy wanted $250 for it. Extortion! It’s better to replace the brass one every few years at just $10.

Wood firing is such an old fashioned occupation. I love it, not because of its long history, or its hands on haptic rewards, or because it is a way of avoiding the use of fossil fuels, nor its DIY economical kiln structure investment of 2nd hand fire bricks, making it economical, but in essence, it’s simply because of the quality of the pots that I can make by doing it. It is all of the above of course, all rolled into one experience, but it’s the beautiful ash enhanced surface on the pots that keeps me doing all the extra work involved in their creation. 

However, having said that, I’m also really engaged with minimising my carbon foot print, so burning wood that I have grown myself, from my own forest is an achievement. I’m so privileged, not many people can claim that. Wood is a form of stored carbon extracted from the air, which when burnt, returns to the air. A beautiful, virtuous circle. It almost entirely eliminates fossil fuels. However, although I use a solar-electric chain saw to cut up the smaller logs and I split the timber using a solar-electric splitter that I re-built myself from a burnt out petrol model, (re-use, re-cycle, re-purpose.) which runs off our solar PV electricity. I still have a big petrol powered chain saw and I cart the logs on my old 21 year old petrol powered ute, but this is extremely minimal fossil fuel use for a kiln firing. Maybe one day there will be an electric ute? Nothing is perfect, so I’m happy with where I am at the moment. I have attempted to do all this so far on a low budget working in the arts.

Winter is the season for wood firing and also for spending the long evenings cooking in the kitchen. We light the wood fired kitchen stove each evening in the winter, which heats the room, but also heats our hot water from the ‘wet-back’ boiler in behind the firebox, while I am cooking our dinner. Winter is also citrus season. So marmalade making is on the agenda.

Making marmalade is such an old fashioned thing to do. It’s sort of a grandma’s thing really, young people don’t seem to know much about it. but I love the stuff, so I have taught myself to make it reasonably well. Every batch is slightly different as I experiment, trying to learn whatever there is to be learnt. My methods are also different from Janine’s, so we have various jars of different marmalades. I like testing out all the various marmalade making techniques. It’s a real learning curve. Exactly the same as when I’m wood firing. Everything is a bit of an experiment.

I can’t really bring myself to want to do exactly the same thing every time. I love to experiment, trying different ways of packing the kiln, different shelf layouts, experiment with different clay bodies, decorating techniques, choice of timbers and wadding. Everything makes a difference. Before the 2019 fires, the last kiln that I had, was there for 15 years, altered a coupe of times, but in continuous use. I got to know it well, I was able to get some really nice pots out of it. This new kiln is a learning experience. I haven’t had a kiln exactly like this before, so I’m only just getting to know it now after 5 or 6 years.

Packing and firing is a little bit stressful. There is a months work at stake, as the wood kiln is so much bigger than the electric kilns, and all the little changes that I decide to make will have unknown consequences. Hopefully they will lead to something better, but not always. I just have to decide to take the plunge. Wood firing to me is akin to pruning the orchard. That might sound strange, but it has similarities. I’ve been doing both for 50 years and still don’t know exactly what I’m doing with either. There are so many variables that I don’t understand fully, but there is no point in procrastinating. I just make the decision and go for it. 

With pruning, each tree is different. I’ve done it before, but was it right?. I have to get over 60 trees pruned. I don’t have unlimited time, so I have to make decisions, and fast. I decide and then do it. I open the centre to let light in, take off any dead wood, remove all the water shoots and crossed branches, reduce top growth by 2/3 to keep the tree manageable and prune to an outward facing bud. That’s it! It’s simple! But which bud, and at what height, how much to take from the centre, which of the two crossed branches to remove and which to keep? I’m never sure. But I choose and do it. 

The same with packing the kiln. I can think about it for a long time, but still not know if it is the best option or not. So I’ve learnt to just do it and accept the consequences. Occasionally I unpack a bit and re-do it, but not often. I do take photographs as I pack though, so that I will be able to remember what it was that I did, 3 days later, after I unpack and study the results. If it doesn’t turn out how I imagined or hoped, no worries, it was a learning experience. Hopefully there are enough good ones to make it feel like it was all worth it.

Sometimes the pots turn out not at all like I was expecting, so I’m not too thrilled. However, it is a case of not seeing what I was expecting to see. After cleaning, fettling and grinding their bases, I get a better look at them and start to see their good points. They are often quite good, just not what I was anticipating. I end up well pleased with the fresh surface quality and I learn something new. So it’s all good.

Winter is here and wood kiln firing

Posted on by

The winter is well and truely here now. We have passed the solstice. We are getting cracking frosts that turn the paddocks silver/white. Janine harvested the last of the almost red, struggling, self sown, tomatoes just in time before the first of the really heavy frosts reduced the plants to crisp brown stalks. The shrivelled plants and their remaining unripened green tomatoes will be composted – eventually, when the weather warms up a little. The mid-winter garden looks a little bit forlorn, but it is still feeding us really well.

We are continuing to pick the citrus fruits. The later crop of Seville oranges are just starting now, so some serious marmalade making will be taking place in the evenings from now on.

I’ve done the first wood kiln firing since returning from my work in Korea. It worked perfectly, and the results were good, although I’m always hoping for something a little bit better, however, I’m happy with the best pots and there is always a string of new test bodies and glazes developing from my local rocks. The samples are encouraging.

I start the firing in the very early morning, so early that there is no noise at all. At 3.30am it is pitch black and really quiet. No traffic noises from the main road. Every body is in bed. It’s a great time to start that tiny little kindling fire, nurture it and watch it slowly grow and develop into something with a life of its own. The little kindling fire is quite an intense time, you can’t walk away for any reason. You have to turn up prepared to sit and pay attention. I don’t leave to make some breakfast and a cup of tea until I start to stoke the bigger blocks of hard wood. Then there is some time to boil the kettle and make some toast. 

By morning, I’ve progressed to the hobs and my firing friends have turned up, so Janine makes us all a proper hot breakfast, cooked on the pottery wood stove. A special treat of our own chickens eggs and some nitrate-free bacon, followed by coffee, our own marmalade on my home made rye bread toast.

I have put a second water spray in my chimney top scrubber and the coarser droplets can be seen wafting out from the top of the scrubber, illuminated in the morning light. They fall like light rain bringing down PM2.5 carbon particles with them. The rest are collected inside the scrubber gutter and drained down into the soil in the back garden.

After unpacking the kiln, the first thing is the house-keeping, cleaning out the firebox and chamber floor, washing the bricks and kiln shelves with alumina, then finally fettling the work. I can see that the sgraffito work is quite different in the wood kiln. The ash and higher temperatures completely change the look of the work compared to the similar pieces fired with solar electricity in the electric kiln.

As heavy rain is forecast for the next week, I wanted to get a load of kiln fuel, in and under cover, ready for the next firing. I spent a few days winching over and cutting down some of our standing dead trees in the far paddock. They were killed in the 2019 catastrophic bush fires that cleaned us out. There is a lot of re-growth now and the understory is coming back up. I’m not sure about these long-dead, burnt trees. Just how stable they are, or if they are partially rotten inside. Dead wood like this can be unpredictable – therefore dangerous. So I’m taking no chances. I wrap a load-chain around the trunk up as far as I can reach, or if they are very tall, I use a ladder to get the connection point up as high as I can. Felling trees is dangerous, so to make it safer, I climb ladders – which is equally dangerous after you turn 50? or 60? or 70? Climbing ladders to make it safer seems a bit of a contradiction, but who said life was straightforward and easy.

Once the chain is (un)safely connected. I remove the ladder and pay out the chain over to where I have a steel wire winch connected to a substantial tree trunk. I cut out a wedge from the chosen tree in the direction that I expect it to fall, then go to the winch and apply a bit of tension, quite a bit, until I see the tree bend over slightly in the desired direction. Lastly, I put a cut in the back of the trunk, stand aside and watch as it falls over to where it is being pulled by the directional cutting and the pull of the winch.

I has worked perfectly every time so far, except once. When the tree was so rotten inside that the weight of a large side branch took it across in an unexpected direction to one side. As I’m standing well back and a little to one side as it goes. I feel that I’m relatively safe. I have been so far, even when the tree goes off sideways in it’s own way.

With smaller saplings, I just attach the wire rope/load chain to the tractor and pull them over.

The wood is all cut, split and stacked ready for the next firing. My hardwood seems to be getting harder as I get softer? It’s a big effort these days to restock the kiln hob wood pile. 

After it’s all done. I’m blessed with a perfect red sunset. Some shepherd somewhere will be delighted.

My 2nd New Korea

Posted on by

I’m working in Korea in this little artists village community on the edge of a country town. There have been potters here making and mining porcelain stone for 800 years. The village is located away from the township, such that the smoke from the traditional wood fired kilns is not a concern for the township residents. It was great forethought in its time to start to locate all the wood kilns up into this side valley.

But it doesn’t stop there, this has been a long-term plan and as with all long-term plans, it is evolving and adapting with current thinking and social mores. Hence my involvement here with the constriction of my low-emissions wood kiln firing designs and techniques. I was commissioned to start this work here, back in 2019, I was all set to come, but before I could start, we had the fire, then covid intervened. So I was unavailable for some years. But I’m back here again now the the plan is back on track.

My demonstration firing was very successful. In previous firings here the only fuel available to fire the kilns with was very dry 5 year aged local pine. The standard fuel here that everybody uses. It is a statement of fact here that dry pine is the only fuel that works in a kiln! 

Last year when I was travelling around, I visited a famous potter’s studio, where they fired with wood. He had built a special pine fuel drying kiln, to desiccate his very thinly split fuel. He told me that it was his special secret, and that only desiccated pine could raise the temperature of the kiln easily. Other potters struggle with ordinary wood, but he had discovered the answer. I decided not to mention that I sometime throw water over the dry pine to get a better result! He had no concerns about making smoke. That was taken as a norm. All kilns make smoke, don’t they!

In the kilns that I have built here, the 5 year seasoned pine burnt furiously and it was very difficult for me to minimise the smoke. I managed it, but wasn’t at all happy with such dry volatile fuel. I enquired about alternatives. There is hard wood available in the form of oak and acacia. But no one uses it for kiln firing as it doesn’t work!!! That was the local opinion anyway! Meaning that it doesn’t work in the traditional kiln designs, used here, using traditional techniques. I thought that it might just be ideal for my purposes, for use in the down draught firebox.

For this most recent firing I had requested that both pine and oak be available, to give me options. There is also the possibility of using local acacia wood, But I was told that this is not considered be be a useful fuel for kilns. That made me more interested in trying it out. I said that it is one of the better fuels back in Australia, but that hasn’t cut any ice here as yet – apparently.

When I arrived, the oak and pine were stacked neatly in front of the kiln. A lovely sight. I started by using just 100% oak. Initially, I found that the oak burnt black and then smouldered. Just as everyone else had found. But I was perfectly sanguine about this, because my local stringy bark timber back in Australia does the same. In fact the locals wouldn’t cut it for use in their open fire places because of this. I quickly found that a blend of 80% oak with 20% pine was a good combination to get started with, using the flashy pine to keep the oak burning. This combo worked well from 700 up to about 1000 oC, when I cut the use of the pine back to just 10%, and finally at 1100oC, I was using straight oak.

This series of combinations got the kiln firing well, while still burning quite cleanly with almost non-existent traces of smoke from the chimney. Just the occasional waft of pale grey smoke.

Problem solved. I was able to fire up to cone 9 in reduction with virtually NO smoke, while firing in reduction. This is a notable achievement here. A lot of chatter and comment, firing in a wood fired kiln with no smoke, by using the oft’ maligned local oak. Applause all round. Who’d have thought?

Maybe the local acacia might even have been better? But that is a project for another visit.

There are two ceramic university campuses that are keen to follow up on this, as they are located in cities, and there is no possibility of being able to make smoke in their location. Downdraught oak firing might just do the trick.

Word gets about it seems. During the cooling period I got news that the opening of the kiln would have to be delayed from one day to the next, then from the morning of the appointed day, to the afternoon, as the Federal Minister of Culture wanted to be there to see the results unpacked, and he could only be available in the afternoon of the 8th. So when in Rome… I delayed the opening at his masters pleasure.

I’m certain that this is no accident. Of course, I don’t know, but it smacks of ‘realpolitik’ strategising. I’d bet that the Director of the Museum has organised this as a media event to promote the Museum. Politicians fund the things that they see, are involved in, understand, AND if it looks like a successful vehicle to advantage their own career. They want to be seen associated with it. 

Just a thought! Call me cynical! But…

I remember some years ago. I collected some porcelain stone from here and took them back to Australia and made a large bowl out of them. I glazed the bowl with a subtle blue celadon glaze that I made incorporating kangaroo ash. A kangaroo had died on my property, so I calcined it and retrieved the local source of phosphorous from the bones. Phosphorous is known to enhance the optical blue in certain pale iron glazes like celadon.

I gave it as a gift to the Museum Director along with the story. This was my own private Cultural Exchange project. His Korean stones collected from this historic site, made into a pure sericite clay body glazed with my Australian kangaroo blue glaze. He loved it. He was so taken by it that he called the Premier and made an appointment for us to meet him and make the bowl a gift to him. Thus bringing the Museum into his field of vision.

We turned up just before the appointed time for our 15 mins of fame, and were eventually ushered into the Official Office along with newspaper reporters, translators, aids and other staff. I was duly introduced to the Premier, a little bit of small talk. He had been very well briefed and made appropriate comments. Then it was down to brass tacks. I handed over the bowl and he graciously accepted it on behalf of the Korean People. He said straight away that he knew next to nothing of Ceramics, but understood the significance of the effort that had gone into such an art work and its cultural exchange significance. He thanked me again and shook my hand. There was a flurry of flash bulbs going off to record this staged event.

He asked me how I came to be researching Korean Porcelain from this remote place. I replied that Korean porcelain is unique in the history of world ceramics. I came here because of the history of the place and the pots that were made here. You can only learn so much from books. I had to come to experience it. He smiled, so you knew about Korean porcelain from back in Australia? I said yes, once I learnt about it, I had to come. The Porcelain Museum here is one of the very few places in the world where this kind of study can take place. Mr Jung, The Director, is very supportive, open and inclusive. He runs a great institution. 

The Premier was reflective for a second, then said. I believe that you can build pottery kilns that fire with wood and make no smoke. This is important for the environment. Mr Jung has asked me for more funding for this kind of project. If the Museum is so famous internationally, attracting research like yours,

I will fund it! 

The next day, the newspapers had the Premier on the front page announcing the success of his funding initiative for his international artistic ceramic exchange program, for the very successful, now internationally recognised, Yanggu Porcelain Museum. Every one wins. The Premier gets all the credit and is in the paper looking like a hero. The Museum Director got his funding. I enjoyed the research and achievement of making the lovely bowl. The premier mentioned before we all left, that the best place to keep such a unique bowl, would be in the porcelain museum.

Back to the present time and hence the sudden flush of offers of work to build similar such kilns from established potters and university campuses. Once it is shown to work, it gets it’s own legs. Word travels fast. These days it travels electronically with likes and re-postings. It’s very fast.

The Minister of Culture is coming for a visit to the Museum and will be at the opening of the kiln. The kiln has cooled more than enough waiting for him to arrive. I’m introduced to the minister, he asks me in Korean – if I can speak Korean. I recognise the phrase, so I’m onto it, but my recall of Korean standard reply phrases is so slow, that before I can make my clumsy reply, he already knows my answer, so swiftly continues in English. “So we will have to speak in English then!”. I nod my thanks.

We make some small talk. He’s been briefed on hisc way here about the nature of the project and asks me if it is going well and I reply yes. That’s the depth of our interaction. That was my 15 seconds of fame! The photographers elbow in and I’m shifted sideways. The minister looks quizzically at the kiln and my Jung explains something in Korean. The Museum team are then given the go-ahead to unpack the kiln.

The firing is unpacked and everyone ‘oohs’ and ‘arrhs’, the other potters here each look in and turn to me with BIG smiles and thumbs-up. Huge sigh of relief. Everyone is all smiles. The pots are mostly well fired, but I’m interested in the minutiae of the detail. I’m looking not just for colour, but for the depth of colour in the celadons. Not just a shiny surface, but a certain quality of soft melt and satiny quality there. I want to get in and see the flame path and the flashing on the exposed surfaces and kiln shelves. Where is the ash deposit and how has it melted. None of this is possible with 50 people crowding around and flash guns going off. 

Its a bit like a crime scene or perhaps an archaeological dig. You don’t want a rabble of untrained people trampling all the evidence and the details. Just like an aboriginal tracker, I want to read the ephemera, the subtle traces and shadows, but that isn’t going to happen. The pots are whipped out and shown to the Minister, with total disregard of their place in the kiln and their fire face and lee side qualities. 

It’s just a little bit of a shame, as I’d like to learn more than I am able to in this situation. Looks like I’m the only one who isn’t ecstatic! I am really pleased that everyone else is so happy with the result, but I know that I can do better. But I need to read the surfaces to be able to learn what I need to be better at it the next time round.

In a perfect world, I’d like to go slowly and examine each pot in detail. These pots aren’t just trophies and trinkets, they are also part of my research, or at least they were when they went in! But this has become a media event now, and that is also very important, possibly more important, because it may well result in continued or even better funding into the future. A topic far more important than one firing and a few glazed pots.

The firing is a success, no doubts. Everyone is happy. They all leave feeling uplifted and maybe just a little bit happy and warm inside to know that they have been somewhere where there is some sort of mysterious, but positive, environmental action taking place. Even though they don’t understand what it is.

Back at the Museum tomorrow, I’ll have to have a quiet look at all the work as we are setting up the show. But the exact context will be lost, however, I can fill in some of the missing info using my experience. I’m so pleased that everyone is happy, but I could have learnt more to help them with the next firing, as the kiln still needs some fine tuning.

What I could see quite clearly, was that the oak ash was very refractory. I’m guessing that it is very high in SiO2. We may need to burn a bit more pine in the mix to introduce some CaO (calcium flux) into the eutectic to get a softer surface from the ash deposit. I was burning 20% pine in the early stages without smoke. I might have to keep that up for the whole firing? As pine ash has a lot of calcium in it.

All grist for the mill in the future. I could also see that the floor at the back was still a little bit under-fired, so I was up at 5,30 this morning and went down to the kiln and took out the bag wall and rebuilt it one layer lower and with one full brick removed, to make larger gaps. I will see how this works after the next firing. I also placed one brick in the middle flue hole to force the flame out to the corners more. All little fine adjustments that I hope will make it fire more evenly.

Another option for the refractory silicious ash problem might be to place a few tiny pre-fired stoneware cups containing a spoon full of Na2CO3 (washing soda) in the front of the kiln. This will mimic a few years of charcoal built-up and decomposition at high temperatures, where sodium vapours are released from the burning embers. The soda will sublimate and slowly volatilise throughout the firing, reacting with the silicious ash as it is being laid down and help it to melt. or I hope so anyway. Everything is an experiment!

I could also use common salt to get a similar effect, but sodium chloride creates a slightly different look. I don’t want to change the look of the ceramic surface from wood fired into salt glaze pots. But anything and everything is worth a try. At least once. I first came across this light salting technique being used in La Bourne in France, back in 1974, where they had been doing it for centuries. As a naive student, I thought that it was a very clever idea that I hadn’t come across before. Many potters have used it since. In fact, it has become part of the standard repertoire. 

With the influence of the Minister of Culture on the front pages and the release of the TV doco soon, there will almost certainly be more enquiries about this firing method. It is my intension to try and leave the kilns here in good condition and with useful, technically accurate kiln firing logs that the students here can use to do their own firings in the future. Hopefully we can work together ‘virtually’ via ‘Kakao’ talk or Zoom to achieve the best result possible. It could be a whole lot easier if they would just read the book, or at least the first chapter on how to fire!

All that is required now is for some young enterprising Korean potter to pick it up and run with it, develop a small business building these kilns for whoever wants one.

Maybe firing a downdraught fire box kiln with local oak will become a thing? I have shown that it is possible. It is now one other possible strategy for potters and academics in the field, to follow to be able to keep on wood firing here into a cleaner, carbon constrained, and environmentally friendlier future. 

All I need to do now is to introduce them to the concept of the after-burner/scrubber to minimise PM 2.5 particulates, not just smoke. But that is a bridge too far at this time and for this visit.

Wood kiln firing unpacked and fettled

Posted on by

I have just unpacked my latest wood kiln firing, just in time for the next 3 Open Studio sales weekends.

There are mixed results, as to be expected, but less seconds than usual. So that’s good.

I’m finally getting the hang of this new kiln and its pre-burnt wood fuel.

I always want to do better, and I keep trying, but I’m happy with what I’ve got. No complaints.

Something about the journey being more important than the destination really..

I tried 10 new clay body recipes. Blending sericite with kaolin based bodies to improve workability. Also some darker bodies.

full moon through clouds

I’ve been experimenting with ash glazes

Ash ‘jun’ glaze, with a light sprinkling of natural ash deposit crystals from the wood firing.

All the pots are now cleaned and fettled, 3 days work in all that, and hopefully nothing to show for it – if I’ve done it well!

Arts Trail – Open Studio 2024

Posted on by

We will be part of the Southern Highlands Arts Trail – Open Studios on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th weekends in November.

I’m back from my work in Korea and I hit the ground running. All the seeds and seedlings that I planted in late August, just before I left for Korea, were all burnt off in the severe frost event that swept through here in early September. However, all the over-wintering vegetables like peas, broad beans, asparagus and the brassicas are all thriving. So that is what we are eating at every meal these days. 



Because we only eat what we grow, our diet tends to go in long stretches of similar meals, we vary the actual mix for variety but I’ll be glad when the first of the summer crops comes on. That is always zucchini, they are so fast out of the starting blocks, along with radishes. 

However, I know that I’ll be glad to see the last of the ratatouille based summer meals and we can taste that first cauliflower again as the seasons come around. I think that it is a universal human failing to want what you don’t have. No matter how many cabbages I grow, I still hanker for a banana or a pine apple every now and then.

At the moment, I am just loving the smell of the tomato foliage as I brush past it when weeding. The smell of tomato leaves offers such promise of fresh salads and the long hot days of summer to come. 

The more established spring flowers in the flower beds around the pottery were not affected by the frost, and have gone on to bloom there little buds off. Its very cheerful and uplifting to look out the studio window and see a vista of spring blooms.

After the frost. Janine went out and bought some more early seedlings to get a bit of a head start for the summer garden, and now that I’m back, I spent all of my first few days planting seeds, weeding, mulching and mowing to get the place ready for the Open Studios Arts Trail, that is being held on ther last 3 weekwnds of November. But also to guarantee our summer food supply security.IMG_0869.jpegIMG_0871.jpegIMG_0872.jpeg

Janine transplanted some wild self-sown spinach seedlings, but they didn’t all take. I filled in the gaps inbetween with some extra seeds. The vegetable garden is looking good again with all the red poppies in flower now. The bees are going full speed ahead. Their little yellow saddle bags are full and bulgeing with pollen.

We already had a lot of pots made for the open studio sale before I left for Korea, but there was also a lot of bisque ware that I had prepared for a wood kiln firing, but I just couldn’t fit it in before I had to leave. So now that I’m back I have glazed all that work and packed the wood kiln.

13 hours to 1300. I think that I have finally found to best way to burn my pre-burnt and charred dead forest of kiln fuel timber.

The citrus grove is in full bloom and you can smell the fragrance of the citrus flowers from the pottery, if the wind is in the right direction. 

We will be open for three weekends in November, 9th/10th and 16th/17th. for the Southern Highlands Arts Trail then the ACA Open Studios, Ceramics Arts Trail that is happening Nationally on the 4th weekend of the 23rd and 24th of Nov. 

Keep us in mind and call in if you can. We have some lovely work to show you.