When I take a good look at my latest pots from the soda kiln I see that the most successful ones were sprayed with slips that produce orange and yellow flashing. So the general look is very Autumnal. When Claude Morin from Moose Jaw and I were working towards firing the salt kiln at Medalta, ten years ago now, we selected a recipe and…
Our scheduled Spring soda firing was obviously postponed and we, TriCity Potters, were pleased to learn that Jay MacLennan was organizing one for our group in October but that it would be run very differently from before. When I'd sent my parcels of pots off to London, Ontario, in late September I quickly changed gear and threw a group of stoneware pots for the…
Your first thought when you've taken your latest pots out of a group atmospheric firing is not necessarily ecstatic. Linda Doherty says that she's never really satisfied on the first day. When I saw that at least two pots weren't quite 'done' I thought that I'd just take all the work home and look at them in the morning. One or two seemed to be…
Finally we were allowed to see how the most recent firing of Shadbolt Centre's Soda kiln had turned out. It was a sunny, if rather cold Tuesday afternoon so we formed a line and passed the retrieved pots along to tables set up outside. You'll see that the first glimpse showed quite a lot of grey orange peel but as we turned the pieces around…
It has been a very busy week in my world of clay. A week ago today I took my two cubic feet of pots to the Shadbolt soda kiln for wadding and left them there. The next day Linda, Jay and Tony loaded the kiln and then I saw Linda again that evening out at UBC for the opening of 'Playing With Fire'. …