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…
It was a clay-packed weekend! On Friday evening Linda took June and me over to the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts for the latest in the NorthWest Ceramic Foundation's series of lectures. Nora Vaillant had studied Leach apprentice and sometime BC resident John Reeve and his influence on West Coast potters for her MA thesis. This talk was a somewhat extended version of the presentation…
Last Wednesday Al and I went on a long-awaited getaway to Whistler but first there was the soda kiln unloading. He had to wait for me to do the important stuff! When I arrived at the kilns Linda had already unloaded the Blaauw kiln and reloaded it with another batch of cone 10 reduction student work. By 10am most of the soda firing group…
On Friday I dropped Al off at his Port Moody exercise class and he was the one without a car later - so walked home, checking out the Ribfest in Rocky Point Park en route. I arrived back at the soda kiln at 3pm and the group were just preparing to start introducing the soda mixture into peep holes. Cone 10 was already down in…