Pots from the Castle Hill salt kiln

I braved the ridiculous mid-day traffic on the Outer Cape Thursday to get to Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro and pick up newly-fired salt pots. Brian Taylor and his crew had the kiln nearly unloaded by the time I cleared the Eastham-Wellfleet jam-up and got to the idyllic countryside where Castle Hill lies.

This was only the second or third firing of this Donovan Palmquist-designed gas-fueled salt kiln. It's a lovely little construction of brick, maybe 15 cubic feet of stacking space. Brian said they used only 6.5 pounds of salt in the firing, which seemed like a fairly small amount. I used to fire with Bill VanGilder and Dan Finnegan at Bill's place in Maryland and we used considerably more than that in a bigger kiln, though I think at times we probably over-salted. (There was always a debate about that ... ) In any case, these pots were fairly subtle in their surfaces. I'll re-fire a number of them in my own reduction kiln this coming week, along with some re-fires from the Harvard soda firing, and we'll see if that makes a difference. I was pleased with the new liner glazes, a blue celadon and a so-called carbon trap Shino, both from the Harvard glaze book, and I'll try them out this week in my own kiln.

I hope Brian continues to fire the salt kiln and that other Cape potters take advantage of the chance to put pots in. I think the firings can only get better. There's always a learning curve with salt - packing the kiln, how much salt, reduction, all of that makes a difference. As a rule, things only get better and better.

I've put the pig sculpture at the top of the images here, mostly because in the last post all you could see were the ham hocks, and particularly the pork-centric folks in North Carolina were interested to see how cone 10 barbecue comes out here in the saltwater North. I apologize that I don't have the pig-maker's name. She didn't want her own photo taken and I neglected my reporter's duty to at least get her name. Perhaps if Brian reads this post he will e-mail me and I can give the sculptor her due credit.

A rare blogging appearance

I haven't felt like I have much to tell people lately. I'm making pots and trying to sell pots. A show this weekend in Cataumet, then another next week in Chatham. Tomorrow I go down to Truro to help unload the salt kiln, with about 20 of my pots in it. Furthering my exploration of atmospheric firing, and deciding what kind of kiln to build. These photos came from Brian Taylor, the studio manager at Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro. If you look carefully, you'll see a couple of my faceted teabowls and a couple of my other pots. Back stack, front stack, kiln in action in the rain.