Take Two, Week 11

Hello Everyone,

Seems like I just wrote the last update! Everyone here is still tired and catching up from the weekend's sleep deprivation. Tomas and Marguite left for a few days to go sightseeing/potter-meeting. On Monday Phil had to drop off some pots at a friend's house named Mark Griffiths. There is a weekend workshop Phil and many other Salt/Soda firers will be participating in. Mark is going early to the event so he is bringing Phil's pots for him (saves on shipping costs). I will miss the event because I will be at Nic's. Phil's pots were for that. Mark's property used to be a school so it is quite large. His showroom is where the old school room used to be. He is ever such a nice, friendly guy. He is a potter but he also maintains lovely gardens and makes wooden bowls. He had two absolutely stunning historical slipware bakers. I've noticed that potters here have a lot more historical pots in their collections when I compare it to the collections of many Americans. They have pots of their contemporaries as well but it just seems that every potter here has certain types of old pots in their homes.
From there we went to Knighton to visit Phil's friend Islewyn (it doesn't get more Welsh than a name like that!). While searching for petrol, we drove through a charming medieval town called Ludlow. It had the most fantastic architecture! Islewyn owns an antique shop that has loads of pots. It has relatively contemporary pots (there was one of Phil's older teapots) and older pots too. It was interesting to see them all; there was so many to look through. Phil bought a jug by Ray Finch, one of his influences and a coffee pot by David Leach. We went out to dinner at a nice pub that Phil and Lynne used to always bring the people on their workshops to.
The next day, I was bursting with excitement to unload the kiln. We did look in with a flashlight; Phil even took a few small pots out that were within his reach. Ken Matsuzaki, an extremely successful Japanese potter who was Shimaoka's apprentice, stayed with Phil last year and fired some of his pots there. Phil refired a cup of Ken's in this firing. Phil had put it on top of the bag wall (which is the half wall of bricks in front of all the stacked pots that directs the flame upwards). Somehow the bag wall shifted during the firing and Ken's yunomi stuck to a kiln shelf. When Phil took it out, it had a chunk of the shelf stuck to it. It may have even kept the bagwall from falling further and disturbing the stack. It is a beautiful cup with rough facets and a pinholed shino glaze. It got some interesting ash deposits on it. Phil ground the shelf off it then said I could have it. It is a very special pot and I will use it carefully.
Lynne and I cleaned all around the kiln, sweeping up charcoal and wood chips. We had to move the pallets where the wood was because that is where the fresh pots would go. Later, Phil and I glazed pots for his gas kiln. I'm glad I had something to do, otherwise it would have been driving me crazy waiting to unload. I mixed up some more black tenmoku glaze. It was an extremely windy day and I was glad to finally be inside the warm house. Tomas and Margite came back from their short travels and we were all excited because Tomas had said he was cooking us dinner. Lynne had told me what a fabulous cook he was so I was looking forward to it. Lynne was right- Tomas made a very delicious meal! He made spicy bruschetta-like appetizers with the main dish being chicken. He cooked the chicken in a red wine sauce with red onions and grapes. All this he placed over rocket greens which have a very bitter, peppery flavor. The sweet grapes with the bitter rocket was very nice. Pudding was the best- stuffed peaches! He filled halved peaches with a cocoa, amaretto, nut mixture and served them with this heavy amaretto cream. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! Phil said they could come anytime to fire the kiln, Lynne said they could come anytime and cook. We stayed up a bit late talking and having a really good time.
Today was the big day.... UNLOADING!!! After breakfast we started unbricking the doors around 10 am. Anne and Guy came to see how everything looked. It was cold and raining (again). We unloaded the main chamber first. It was a mix, some good and some not so good. There was a lot of cool spots where Phil had never had cool spots before. It seems the weather had more of an effect than we thought because several other potters fired the same weekend and had the exact problems we had- stalling, etc. Phil is not sure why the pots came out the way they did- many of them underfired. If a pot is underfired it means the piece did not get hot enough for the glaze to melt as it should. The result is a dry, light glaze that feels chalky.

I had about two boards worth of pots in the kiln. Most of them were in good places and came out well. I was particularly happy with a jug lined with a nuka glaze. It had a big ash deposit right in the middle near a dimple- absolutely juicy. I also had a few teapots that were coated nicely with ash. I tried one out and the tea comes out nicely but it does drip. Any seasoned potters who have tips on preventing this, please share them! I also had some shallow bowls that I stacked with shells and wadding in between that came out really well. I put a few of the squared lidded boxes in and they also came out nice. Phil had an interesting happy accident with a shino glaze. He had ordered some spodumene which is a granular sort of ingredient he puts in some of his glazes. The suppliers sent him some that was not as fine as it should have been. I mixed up a glaze with it not realizing it was wrong until I tried in vain to put it through the sieve and it looked like wet sand. In the end we think it might have given the glaze a crawled effect. This means it created little crackle patterns. It looked stunning on many of the pots.

The salt chamber had a pretty low success rate. It was reduced well but many things were really brown and monochromatic. There were a few nice pots but many of them will need to be refired. Some of the shinos inside were bubbly and blistered. Phil says he should have put a little more salt in to make the pots look better over all. I did get a pair of low bowls out of the salt chamber that came out amazing. Again, I stacked them with shells and wadding. They had a flashing slip on the outside and a shino on the inside. I never used shells before and I was really taken with the results. I was sad that Phil was not happier with his pots. It is hard though because when you make a pot you have an expectation of how it will look. If it comes out different than expected, even if others like it, it is hard to accept it yourself. He had two big shows coming up and will now have to refire a lot of these pots to make enough for the shows. Its just dissapointing and stressful after all the hard work that goes into firing the kiln. Phil has decided to turn the salt chamber into a regular wood chamber and do all his salting in his old salt kiln. Overall, I was happy with my pots and Phil had some real gems too. He no doubt learned from this firing. It just reinforces that no matter how long you've been a potter, there are always new things to learn.

There were no lamb fatalities this week! I think there are three newborns so far. The newest lambs are a set of twins I saw this evening while walking the dogs. They were still all slick looking and the placenta was on the ground. They seemed healthy but I'll keep an eye on them just in case. There is this little mound of earth you can see when standing at the kitchen sink. Late in the afternoon the lambs all gather on it and go "a-gamboling". This means they frolick around and chase each other; it is absolutely adorable and fun to watch. Sometimes they will jump staight in the air like they have springs on thier hooves. The males head butt each other and they just tear around kicking and jumping. They have so much fun. Its something to see 10 or 12 white fluffy lambs a-gamboling.

Margite and Tomas left a few hours ago. Margite is going back to Denmark for college and Tomas will return to Estonia. It was fun to get to know them a little. I am getting ready to go to Nic's on Friday. Phil is going to Newport to visit his dad and he will drop me off at the train station. This will be the last update for a while as I will not be back until April 20th or so. I hope you are all well and enjoy the pictures.

Take care,

Kari