Last Friday I took myself over to Shadbolt Centre in Burnaby to join the other participants in the soda firing. The kiln wasn't quite ready for introducing soda so Linda Doherty suggested I check out the Craft Fair that was taking place in the main building that day, and Saturday and Sunday. First I took a lovely Fall stroll down to Deer Lake in the…
On the very day that we arrived home from England I was notified that an extra Soda Firing Workshop had been arranged at Shadbolt Centre because there were so many people on the waiting list. Of course I signed up there and then. But it meant that I needed to make my two cubic feet of ware between then, late September, and now. In the…
Any time you fire with flame rather than predictable electricity you are going to have surprises. Whether your work is in a reduction-firing in a gas kiln, in a wood kiln or a salt or soda firing you can never be sure how things will work out. There are sometimes serendipitous happenings and other times when the surfaces are flat, rough, crunchy or the wrong…
After waiting three suspenseful days the fifteen TriCity potters who'd taken part in a first group soda firing showed up at 3pm on Tuesday afternoon to see what we'd done. When I arrived a few tall pieces from the very top had been removed but I quickly snapped a photo of the front section of the load. With quite a few blue slip sprayed pieces…
Last year the TriCity Potters decided to ask for a group soda firing at Shadbolt Centre and we were given a slot for this April. To get prepared we invited Fredi Rahn, who teaches there and who has lots of experience with soda firing, to give us a presentation in January. She discussed which clays to use and explained that the outsides of the pots…