Merrie Boerner on tue 12 oct 99
After two months of preparation (gathering wood, making pots, gathering
potters to participate) a group of us fired Mother ( my 115 cubic foot
Mississippi groundhog kiln) for her third time. Lowell arrived Friday, and
for lack of anything else to do and with too much enthusiasm to contain
ourselves, we began stacking the pots into the kiln....in the pouring rain.
I drove my van full of glazes pottery right up to the shelter, and began
pulling out the appropriate sizes and shapes needed to fill the space.
After filling about 8 shelves...we decided to hold some of our pots back
for the front sweet blast of flame and ash. Celeste, from Montgomery, drove
up with food and new conversation....so we headed for the house, ate, and
sat on the back porch til late Friday night....full of anticipation and
great lasagna and red wine.
Saturday morning more potters arrived in time for coffee, banana nut bread
and some last minute glazing. It had rained most of the night, so Lowell's
first challenge was to get my van out of the mud pit I had made with the
back two tires. So, the morning began with a good ole Mississippi mud
slinging.Then, pots were spread across boards and Lowell climbed into the
stoke hole again to spend three more hours of stacking. Thankfully, the
rain held off until we started the slow, small fire and stoked her for a
while....BUT...the Gulf sent quite a bit of moisture our way...The men hung
a tarp off the front of the shelter and used 12' bamboo posts from our yard
to hold it out for a canopy...that was cool...then Lowell sat down with
tools from his truck and made bamboo glaze dippers and knives and
such....really cool. We also use long bamboo poles to stir the ashes...heat
builds up in the hollow chamber...it explodes, of course..."fluffing up"
the ashes a bit. In Mississippi these plants are called "cane poles" or
"fishin poles"...yet another use for the beautiful plant....well,
anyway...we assigned two potter stoking shifts, three hours each, putting
one experienced woodfirer with a woodfiring virgin : ) My shift was at
2am with Ky ( a cute young potter working on his masters at Ole Miss ; )
Our instruction were to "maintain heat"......I knew what that meant, but
somehow during the heat of the moment...we blasted her off !!! When the 5am
shift arrived, we checked cones and 12 was flat in the left and right
center ! YIKES ! Weird part was that only 8 was down in the other 4 spy
holes. I helped the next shift to "maintain heat" until Lowell arrived at
8am. I took full blame for the screw up....and after a "Shame on you",
Lowell began his shift...shoveling out ashes and throwing them back into
the stoke hole. We could see them fly through the pots..riding the flames.
Tom and Lowell blasted her off and closed her up at around 10am....a 23
hour firing....I have peeked through the spy holes and seen some pretty
glazes, flashing and ash...I'll try to stay out of her until tomorrow
night...the potters will return on Saturday to unload...the suspense is
killing me !
I know that each firing will be like a "first time". there are so many
variables.....new participants, different types of wood, rain....always
trying to figure out how to please her....seems like this Mother heats up
so quickly and she is a bit EASY !!!!
Well, a friend just arrived, so were off to the kiln sight with the flash
light ! I'll let yall know about the pots next Sunday : )
Flame, Flash, and Nice Ash,
Merrie
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