Quite a small effective kiln and hardly any smoke.

The fire box.












View of the glow of the fire through hole in the chimney.

A mixture of sawdust and salt is put on wood which is shoved as far back into the stoke hole for salt-ash glazing.

The opening of the kiln.

Kusakabe-san holding a beautiful bowl.

Our results from the kiln.











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Filling up the paper clay “VASE KILN”.

Closing of the kiln.

Starting the fire.

Fire from within.

]]> http://swanceramics.com/2008/03/05/nola-fired-up-3/feed/ 0 http://swanceramics.com/2008/03/05/nola-fired-up-2/ http://swanceramics.com/2008/03/05/nola-fired-up-2/#comments Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:25:02 +0000 swanica http://swanceramics.com/?p=662 Next day, I put the clay slurry with magazine paper on the in- and outside of the kiln. Thicker paper and with colors (the chemicals in the ink) on it make it more refractory.

Around 3pm a group of high school kids from an NOCCA art center came to have a look and they helped me finishing the neck of the kiln and still put a layer all over with lots of enthusiasm.
Then I cut some wire again for making kind of shelves to put different layers of pots.


A quarter side of the kiln was still open, because I had to fill it the next day.

On the other side of the field, Fred Olsen and Richard White’s kiln was becoming very impressive. They would start the firing already that night, very slowly.

I arrived at midnight. It is an easy city to drive in, so, I found my hotel alright in the French Quarter. It is an old city and where I’m building the kiln, the devastation of the Katrina hurricane is still everywhere. But it has a nice atmosphere with those old plantation kind of houses, small and big, with beautiful decorations.

I started building my alternative paper-clay Vase kiln. Wali Hawes taught me this technique at the Fantastic Fire Workshop in Mashiko, last October ’07.  http://www.walihawes.com/
I designed the shape of the “Vase Kiln”.

The NOLA Fired Up organization with Chris Brumfield and Bonita Day and Caroline Smith and many more volunteers did an incredible job with this conference and with helping me in getting all the materials for being able to build this kiln. Thank you so much. From rebar a friend welded the frame of this kiln. I put chicken wire on and built the brick base. Inside will go a wire horizontal tube, which I will fill with charcoal.

Meanwhile, Fred Olsen and Richard White had already started building their sculptural kiln.

On this little Clover vase you see the fly ash deposits making a glaze on one side and on the other side the vitrification and starting of a glaze, patina by the flames, fly ash and heat, causing the orange and red flashing.

This vase was put in the fire box and was covered with a thick layer of ash of the burned wood.

The foot of this chawan, teabowl, shows the wonderful flashing of the fire and the upside bowl the fly ash and the flashing.

This Shiratori vase shows the drippings of the glaze falling from the ceiling on the clay.

Some pots from Euan’s Anagama, actually, down draft wood kiln. Read his essay about his kiln firing; website given underneath.

The inside of this vase is covered with a Tenmoku glaze.
On the outside, you see the flashing and the lines from rice straw full from an old tatami mat marking the vase.
“The glaze making minerals that enter a kiln with the wood flame in the form of ash and gasses can turn the simplest of pots into expressions of natural beauty by simple virtue of the process itself. The fly ash will cause a coating of glass where it settles on the pots, and the gaseous salts etc will cause the silica in the surface of the clay to vitrify causing orange and red flashing”. From Euan’s Essays:
http://www.d1.dion.ne.jp/~euan/sub5-2.htm

This vase was partial glazed with a Tenmoku glaze. It was at the fire face so the ash built up on the front of the vase and started to form little runnels down the vertical surface.

This little vase was put on its side on shells from which you see the marks and the flashing around the shells. The fly ash deposited on the top/right side of the vase.

Beautiful vase decorated with a Celadon glaze. The fly ash makes the glaze matt and you see the markings of the rice straw with the flashing.

Small Celadon glazed vase from the anagama firing.

Little chalice with the Celadon glaze, some Tenmoku glaze spatters and rice straw markings.

This wonderful vase was fired in the Flying kiln from Wali Hawes and was covered with the seaweed and scrub pads in a former blog. A lot of other chemicals were thrown in the kiln. Some beautiful colors developed. The white smog layer is salts coming out of the vase. The vase also got a lot of smoke from the charcoal put in the kiln.
(Please, click on it for enlargement).

Kusakabe-san’s kiln. This part of the chamber had lots of ashes on the pots.

Great pots from the Sasukenei kiln.

Cooling down of Euan’s kiln.

The wonderful results from this kiln.

Opening of Steve’s kiln.

Interesting results form the salt kiln.

Opening and taking out pieces of Flying Kiln.

Nice results from Wali’s kiln.

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On Friday, Wali started to prepare his kiln and pasted with advertisement paper and wet clay. This kiln will be wood and charcoal fired.

The pasting team: Swanica, Debbie, Jenny, Catherine and Pat and Nicole (hidden somewhere).

My pot covered with seaweed and cleaning abrasive pads and rope to hold it. Seaweed contains a lot of salt and the fumes during the firing will color the clay.

Prepared pots for the flying kiln. (click on pictures for enlargement).

Putting pieces in the kiln.

Closing of the kiln and making of wings.

Drying of the kiln in a well protected area with roof against the torrential rains. It didn’t dry too fast, but still well enough.

Painting of the kiln by Debbie, Catherine and Nicole.

We started the firing of the flying kiln on Sunday morning, because of the heavy typhoon rains. Of course, when it is dark it is more impressive, but nonetheless it was very intriguing to get this big, heavy kiln to fly on chains.

And it did! Steve, Wali, Nicole.

Wali, the pilot!

It was a good take off!

Titus, Catherine, Wali, Jenny, Jenny, Dave, Graham, Euan, Swanica, Laura, Steve, Rob and Nicole.

Wali’s website is: http://www.walihawes.com/index.php

Building the flues.

Steve built the floor on which the wood and ashes will fall through the holes. Air will pass through the flues and the holes to give full combustion.

Explaining his plan to local potters. They are amazed as we build kiln which fire very fast compared to their kilns with about the same fire effects.

Bars in the fire box for the wood to fall criss-cross to get full combustion.

Closing the fire box.

Building of the second level: the pot chamber and the chimney.

Inside of the chamber.

On Saturday morning, we filled up the kiln.

Steve and Rob fitting and putting the pots in with the help of Kate, Steve’s wife.

The kiln is filled and covered with insulation and extra protection for the rain.

Finishing the chimney.

Euan, Steve and Kusakabe-san.

All this is happening while the other 2 kilns are cooling off. Euan’s kiln finished firing at 1.30am and Kusakabe-san’s kiln at 8am in the morning. Wali’s flying kiln is being build at this moment too (in the next blog).

Starting the fire!

The fire starts well!

Protecting the watch/check holes.

Flames shooting out of the chimney! The firing was done around 8pm Saturday night, and had taken around 6 hours!

His website: http://www.mudslinger.me.uk/