Merrie Boerner on tue 18 mar 03
Bill and I gave Ann Semple and Rebecca Knight a ride up to San Marco for the
pit firing.....in the pouring rain.....the pit firing was canceled, which
gave us a temporary let down, but the party continued with vigor ! We walked
into the studio, grabbed a beer and chips ,,,,just in time to hear Marc
Lancet talk about how to apply chemicals and stuff to pots to saggar fire in
the gas kiln. I had not brought a pot (thinking that my brain could only
hold information about one kind of firing)....but all the ingredients made
sense to me....copper, iron, sawdust, heat......it was intriguing. My dear
friend, Dave Finkelnburg (hope I put that 'n' in the right place) gave me
one of his sweet teabowls to decorate. I first dipped a part in a copper
wash, then dripped on some iron wash, then wrapped some copper mesh around
and sprayed some copper paint on the inside. I heard John Evan say, "Less is
more." about 3 times....so, I decided to quit. But, Dave told me that he
had used porcelain clay, and I thought white would be good....so, I covered
some random parts with thin slabs of wet clay. Then I took heavy aluminum
foil, put down some sawdust, then the pot, stuffed the pot with sawdust and
put it all around the outside.....wrapped it up , then wrapped it with
another layer.....and gave it up to the fire.
They stacked the pots into a gas kiln, brought it up to 1000* F while my
hubby cooked burgers and everyone ate. Before we left that night, we were
able to unload the kiln and critique the pots. The burnished ones were the
best, of course.....but, there were some nice surprises, too. We think that
we should have held it at 1000* for a while to get ALL the pots to temp, and
to burn up some of the sawdust in the packing......lots of the copper didn't
do anything. My little Dave pot is a winner. It has white places with
black turning gray....and some nice copper markings. I am hooked.
Sunday, Bill, Rebecca and I drove down Highway 1 and stopped at the "Dog
Beach" to watch the dogs run their owners. We collected seaweed, put it in
plastic bags, and into our suitcases........ mine is now drying in the
Mississippi sun........hanging in the dogwood tree.
Thanks to all for sharing and broadening my experience with fire,
Merrie
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