Making some things before the semester drops hammers.

April 2012 Juniata College anagama part 8

We are unloading tomorrow afternoon. The temperature in the front reached a little over 2250 degrees F and as far as we can tell the back hit 2200. Things look melty and shiny. Chaos reigns supreme... which seems to be the way things go :) I feel pretty good about the event thus far. The kiln is a dream. (1974-2012 and counting) There will be more pictures.

April 2012 Juniata College anagama part 7

April 2012 Juniata College anagama part 1

One foot in front of the other.

There has been a bit of preparation for a wood firing in April at Juniata. Jared, Kurt, Nick, and I have been given the opportunity to give it another go after the last firing in November. I have been blessed by the addition of an electric wheel in my space, and after today I now have my electric kiln in place. I hope to do a bisque firing tomorrow and if that goes well a mid range (cone 6 or 2262 degrees F) firing soon after that so I may have bisque fired examples of the Dundee Red clay from Georgies as soon as this coming Monday.
I also ordered a box of MC 214 clay from Alligator Clay Supply down in Louisiana that I hope will be here as soon as tomorrow. My plan after that is to get some Cone 4-6 clay from Standard Ceramic Supply right here in Pennsylvania and see which clay meets my approval. I also am collecting some midrange recipes for clay bodies that I want to try. To hand mix my clay bodies would be the best case scenario because I would know exactly what is in them and I wouldn't have to pay so much in shipping. But if I find a better commercial body then that's what I'll stick with. For instance, Standard 257 is a fantastic porcelain that I just absolutely fell in love with in college. I mixed all my own clays in school but I had problems getting porcelain to that perfect state of plasticity while staying away from Titania, more on that later. What I found was this boxed clay that works like a charm; for me of course, I recommend mixing your own porcelain first and trying other varieties before settling on anything. The point of all of this is that I have been making pots for the next anagama firing in April. Here is an image of some jars that I put together Wednesday. I have a long way to go before I have enough wares to feel comfortable and prepared for the upcoming firing but I am on my way.

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

Mid Summer's End

I have just come back from a 'weekend' in Carlisle PA in which I spent time working with Kurt in his studio preparing for a salt/wood/propane firing in his kiln. This firing is going to happen next weekend and I plan on documenting so there will be another post to follow this one with images of the whole deal. Just before that though my dad and I set up a small barrel that he lined with a refractory castable material and attempted to run a saltku (high temp, like cone 9-14, gas firing using charcoal and rock salt) firing. Because of the lack of a proper flue system we were only able to reach 1250 degrees F but it was still a worthwhile venture. We fired from about 6pm till midnight when the kiln basically stopped gaining temp for good. We are casting a real lid with a better opening for a flue so there will be another firing soon.

We had a camera so here is kind of how it went.

Iris Film Festival and Drobnock.

I had the opportunity to design the new logo for the Iris Film Festival.

(http://www.irisfilmfestival.org/Iris FF Home.html)

Keep an eye on their site for a supposed update using the new design.


The dates for the festival are September 18 - 19th, that's a Friday and Saturday, 2009.

By that point you should be able to get your hands on some festival shwag to proudly display the new logo to your now jealous friends.