Bruce Davis on sun 4 jan 04
I live in a typical cheek-by-jowl subdivision on the Mississippi Gulf
Coast. I have a yard with a 6' wooden privacy fence around the back and side so
I can do pretty much what I want without attracting too much attention. I
have a 10' X 12' storage building with 7' high double doors and a small concrete
slab in front of the building. My front-loading raku kiln was designed by
Randy Broadnax and is mounted on wheels so that it can be rolled in and out of
the building without difficulty. I discretely raku about once or twice a month
by waiting until everybody has gone to work or school--maybe between 10 AM and
3 PM.
Then I roll out the kiln, haul the 60 gal. gas bottles in place and load
the ware. I can be cookin' in 5 minutes. I have my reduction chambers ready
by the time the kiln is up to temperature. I put several layers of wet
newspaper ( al la Robert Pipenburg) on the lids of the smaller chambers and quickly
cover them. The paper helps seal the smoke inside. I have one large garbage
can that will smoke regardless of how much I try to seal it so I sit a
galvanized wash tub on top of it and then spread a tarp over the whole thing. This
traps the smoke under the tarp and it gradually disappears into the grass.
To date I have never heard anything from my neighbors and I seriously
doubt whether any of them are even aware of anything out of the ordinary going on.
I moved to Mississippi when I was stationed here with the Seabees. I have
been here for 28 years and am almost native to the area now. You can tell when
you finally become a native by when you start saying, "I'm fixin' to go to the
Alabama Clay Conference", or 'I'm fixin' to make some pots", etc. I "reckon"
there are many other regionalisms native to the south.
Best regards,
Bruce Davis, Mud Run Pottery
I put a few raku pictures on my PhotoBucket.com site under Bdavis6129...I
lost the best ones when this HP computer crashed...which it frequently
does....never again....
John Rodgers on sun 4 jan 04
Bruce Davis wrote:
> You can tell when
>you finally become a native by when you start saying, "I'm fixin' to go to the
>Alabama Clay Conference", or 'I'm fixin' to make some pots", etc. I "reckon"
>there are many other regionalisms native to the south.
>
Bruce,
How about "We are going for a ride ON the car!". Or perhaps, "Set that
kiln over YONDER!"
Yep, we'uns got'em! LOL!
Best Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
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