Busy In Boiling Springs

Its cold in Pennsylvania.
And I just spent the last few days at Kurt's studio prepping and firing some collaborative work (collaborative? I know its definately a new concept in clay for me).
I started slip decorating my own pots last year around April and Kurt saw some pieces and asked if I would do some decorating on his pots. I said I would and so we set out to do this a few weeks before the new year. We fired in his wood salt kiln (the one that I posted pictures of from this last summer) for two and a half days. Candled with propane on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and added some larger burners, as we started with his weed burner, and did turn ups over the lunch time hours. The real deal started around 4 in the afternoon. We had help and visitors through out the firing as Kurt's home and studio tend to be a very active place (people are always popping by to see what he is up to, to lend a hand, or just to share conversation). Apparently he also had a visit from the cranky neighbor lady from last time (remember her, she needs to find a hobby other than terrorizing Mr. Brantner and his pottery) who didn't have anything nice to say, she even went as far to say she wanted to have him fined! Which we all know is nonsense... Kurt fired the kiln solo from about 3am to 11am Thursday morning. It reached a temperature of cone 11 (about 2400 degrees F). We also set up the door with a port so hikidashi could be performed. Unfortunately I wasn't there to help but from what I heard Kurt pulled 4 pots out of the port.

We are unloading this Sunday, the 23rd of January and I will try to document then. We did get some folks to take pictures while they were there and Kurt had some video footage taken at the end. There is a small preliminary trailer that is about 1 minute 45 seconds (actual footage is over a half hour). It was filmed by Nate, a friend of Kurt's. This video will most likely be replaced by another one but for reference its pretty interesting.

*Edit

Well here is a new video by Nate of the unloading that happened the 23rd. Its a pretty good little film. Gives you an idea of what kinds of things came out and shows a little bit of Kurt and I in the flesh.

Kurt Brantner Winter Sale Film from Cinemoxie on Vimeo.

Post Kurt's kiln info

To sum up the firing in Boiling Springs PA with Kurt. We fired the kiln with hard wood to 2400 degrees Fahrenheit over a Three day period in August. All in all the kiln fires very well (this firing was pretty much the first firing that we were able to fire the way we did) for a maiden voyage. There were some hiccups as illustrated in the text below. At the height in temp and the end of the firing we performed a 'hikidashi' style removal of wares from a central shelf through an opening in the middle of the door I prepared ahead of time with this in mind. Hikidashi involves removing wares to check the clay and glazing at different points during the firing. Sort of a elaborate set of draw rings. We also salted heavily after each piece was pulled. There were about 9 pieces removed.

You can see parts of this process documented in the set of pictures below this entry.

On a current affairs note. Jared, Kurt, Nick, myself, and the vast majority of the students partaking in the Fall 2010 Juniata College Ceramics program fired the anagama on campus just a few days ago. We loaded on the 15th of this month. Unloading should be sometime at the beginning of this week... It seemed to have gone very smoothly. I will try and document the unloading and I have a few images of the firing taken by myself and my Dad, there may be others. Expect these to be posted as soon as I possibly can.

Simon Leach has a tiny youtube video of the very end of the firing. I left at 10am that morning after working two shifts and hanging out kiln side since 3pm the previous day. He showed up in the afternoon the final day. Jared and Nick have cameos in the video. They are finishing up sidestoking the very back of the kiln. I'll give specifics on how we fired and how it finished up later. Anyway check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/sleachpots#p/a/u/0/OuljfkjU6nc

Wood-Salt Firing in Boiling Springs with Kurt

Friend, colleague, and Juniata College student Nick Brown and I joined Kurt to fire his updraft woodkiln in August. It went quite well dis-spite a disgruntled and completely uninformed neighbor who just picked us to take all her environmental woes at about 9:00 am at around 2000 degrees. What a problem! People really need to learn about what they are fighting against before they raise their voice. If she knew what kind of footprint the wood we were burning actually was as opposed to the propane she forcefully suggested we use or the gas she uses to 'drive to her real job' over an hour everyday she would never have left her house to even think about doing anything but thanking us for enriching her town both in spirit and in culture. We went from stoking rather large pieces of slab wood to spending about 12 to 14 hours firing with nothing but 3 or 4 pieces of 9"x3"x1" hardwood and were able to continue to rise in temperature. It was insane. The pictures I promised will be uploaded shortly as there are many.