week thirteen 11/17-11/23

Wood firing week!

I had fun! On Monday I decorated for Christmas (unrelated to the wood firing but see pic of my cute tree and cameo by Fred)

Tuesday began my involvement with the wood kiln. I made the door slip before class (quite lovely) and all during class I helped Grace, Emma, and Tarra load.

This was my first ever wood firing.

My first shift was the wee hours of Thursday morning, midnight to 4am. By that point the fire was so tiny baby, but I was a just a sweet summer child who thought that it was so big and hot. I had so much to learn.

Small tragedy - the back cone pack was nowhere to be seen, vanished, exploded.

Thursday afternoon, 4pm. I arrived to the studio and lo! behold fire was coming out the top of the kiln’s chimney! My eyes had never seen such a sight before!

This shift was fun, hard, hot, and full of learning. My skin got burned just from getting close to fire to stoke. I found out that Emma had singed some of her bangs, and that made me horrified and also grateful that I was wearing a hat.

By 8pm or somewhere around there the kiln got to temp and cone 10 was down in all spots. We sealed her up and left her be.