Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Photos

Here are some photos the wife took before and while I was firing.

Fingers crossed. I had about 20 student pieces in this firing.

I think this was at about 1800 degrees. Notice Willem Gebben in the bottom right corner keeping me company.

Check out the dangerous nails sticking out of that guy!
I tallied up my total involvement for this firing including: shelf/post cleaning. wood gathering/sorting/chopping, loading, firing and the grand total was 25 hours. Not too bad for a wood firing I think. One of my students asked how it's possible to have the drive and energy to put that much work into something. I was running on empty and said something along the lines of being excited about what you do. The truth is it is a labor of love but it is also a job, there are times when I grumble-usually when chopping wood or loading at 3am. Seeing the finished work feeds me, right now I'm going crazy because I have to wait until morning to get into the kiln. I can't imagine not being excited about firing, I suppose if I ever get that way I need to start looking for something else. I can put 25 hours into a firing and if I get one good pot that brings me to my knees I'm happy with it, it's worth it to me. I have discovered that this is the way my pots have to be finished, nothing else is as satisfying, maybe later in life my direction will change but for now this is it.
That's all I have for now.

3 comments:

Craig Edwards said...

Nice pictures! Can't wait to see the results.

Ron said...

Looks like a great load of pots. I'm ready for the unloading too!

Anonymous said...

unloading a kiln is the closest thing to the xmas of my youth... always look forward to it enthusiastically