Saturday, April 4, 2009

Kiln-opening this morning


Donna Sutherland and I emptied the kiln this morning. This was a pretty good firing, given that it was mostly a clean-the-bisque-off-the-shelves load. And given that when I shut down yesterday afternoon, I neglected to close the damper after a last few minutes of oxidation. Three hours later I remembered the damper, but by that time the temperature had dropped from 2300F to about 800F. Crash-cooling at its finest and least intentional.
As a consequence - I think - most of the usual carbon-trapping I get with one of my favorite Shino glazes was not there. Fortunately, I'd sprinkled wood ash on a number of those pots, so that the surfaces - though quieter than usual - actually have some nice, subtle things going on.
The other concern of having a bunch of Dan Finnegan demonstration pots in there turned out not to be a concern at all. Dan's pots look just fine - temmoku on a number of them, a few glass runs, one or two with copper red, a nice ash celadon on a tall vase, and even some delicate webs of carbon-trapping on a fine mug. All of these pots will help the Cape Cod Potters raise a bit of money for the CCP education fund. Thank you for that, Daniel.
I'll attach one photo of some of Dan's pots here and later today or tomorrow put up some of my own.

5 comments:

Dan Finnegan said...

I'm sure even Ed Hopkins would like the little round tenmoku mug. I'm equally sure that Ray would never approve of the copper red jug. But he's probably more forgiving than me! They look great Hollis. I hope that you can squeeze some money out of them for the Fund.

Hollis Engley said...

Well, it seemed only right to use temmoku on the little mug. You can't see it in the photo - and not very well in person - but there are a couple of pours of crackle slip on the mug. The jug's another question entirely. We'll just keep it a secret from Ray. I'll put up some other ones when I get photos taken. I took the Shino mug to Coffee O this morning for a try-out. Three people wanted to buy it.

Dan Finnegan said...

The big mug really is pretty cool. Quite uniform in its irregular pattern. I like how the foot has stayed pinky. And I do see the crackle on the little one. Very cool.

Anonymous said...

nice red on that pitcher

Hollis Engley said...

Yes, Dan, I used a crackle slip on a couple of your pots. Three or four small pours on the little mug, but mostly covered by the temmoku. Some on the pitcher, but again obscured mostly by the red. And the larger "soup" bowl got four pours on the outside and then the ash celadon, which was the best result of the crackle combination of all of them. (And thank, Jim, tell Finnegan he should use more copper red.)