We opened the Shadbolt Centre’s Soda kiln today but before I share photos of that excitement I’ll post some showing the end of the firing last Wednesday. Every single piece of wadded ware was loaded into the kiln on Tuesday by soda workshop leader Arlynn Nobel and technicians Jay MacLennan and Tony Wilson. We were told that it wasn’t a tight pack.. all good.
The kiln was candled overnight and fully lit on Wednesday morning. When I got there some time after 2pm I found that the kiln’s temperature had risen almost to the point at which we should start the soda introduction. The very first draw ring indicated that orange peel had already started to form on a blue-slip-sprayed ring. Arlynn prefers not to have too much reduction and to avoid the characteristic grey that some like. I agree that colours are brighter that way.
Tony and Jay prepared the soda mixture for the sprayer and pumped up its pressure and those of us who could be there that day took a turn removing a brick and carrying the bucket of nozzle-cooling water or spraying the soda into the kiln and onto our ware. In between sprayings we carefully removed the draw rings, dropping them into the bucket of cold water. You’ll see how quickly we found suitable juicy peely glaze on them and by about 5pm we finished up the soda mixture, allowed the kiln’s atmosphere to clear a bit and turned off the kiln.
Tony showed me the inside of the chimney before he closed the damper at the end of the firing. It’s completely coated with glass.
Full of eager anticipation we had to leave, knowing that we wouldn’t see our results until the next Monday, today!
I walked down to the main Shadbolt building to check the current ceramics displays so will add photos of pieces that I enjoyed. Tech Tony Wilson and soda workshop participant Rebecca Ramsay were ceramic artists-in-residence at the centre last Summer and their work was set out on covered plinths in the atrium. I must admit to being more fond of wheel-thrown work than hand-built so here I have recorded the fun experiments Tony made. Astonishingly transparent Canadian porcelain Polar Ice pieces caught my eye along with other soda-fired tests. In another case there were curly green shapes and a fine three-legged vessel.
Along the corridor I found that four clay artists had been invited to bring in pieces from their collections, made by women, to commemorate International Women’s Day on Friday March 8th. Invitees were Mike McElgunn, Nora Vaillant, Sally Michener and Paul Mathieu. I particularly enjoyed these pieces belonging to Paul Mathieu; cruets by celebrated Australian potter Janet deBoos, a butter dish by Joan Bruneau and a wild mug by Mariko Patterson, both well-known Nova Scotians, a Sally Michener sculpture and, oh my! I recognized a plate (made by yours truly) painted by Raider Renée Van Halm.
