Through the Fire, Out of The Ashes
The pieces are out of kiln! I just pulled all these magical pieces out of the saggar fire. You never know what you are going to get. The saggar fire process is an ancient pit firing technique where you bury pieces of art in a contained space with all kinds of materials surrounding them. In this case I used steer manure, vermiculite, saw dust, branches from the yard, and a bunch of different minerals from Laguna Clay (I’m not sure which ones because I didn’t have my glasses on! But it included red iron oxide, chrome green oxide, potassium bi-chromate, copper carbonate—some of which I sprinkled directly on the clay, some of which I mixed into the vermiculite in bulk), coffee grounds I have been saving, banana peels…(you can use copper wire, seaweed, salt—there are infinite possibilities.)
Some people are meticulous about this process and have a much clearer idea about the results they are going to get. I, on the other hand, place a rather high value on not knowing. I have so many areas of my life where I am in so much control, even in the forms that are being fired, that I love the fact that I let go of what will happen on the surfaces of these pieces. Knowing that I can re-fire them and something else will happen is a plus…helps me let go. I tried something I hadn’t done before, which was to do a reduction firing right as the heat reached maximum temperature, starving the kiln of oxygen which I’d heard could bring the colors out. I had kind of a wild time as the massive flames started blowing back in my face as I was checking the cones through the spy hole. Needless to say I had to open the vent a little bit. I lit the kiln on Friday and let it stay at around 600 degrees overnight so that I could babysit it all day on Saturday. It was hard to wait for the temperature to come down all day Sunday, but I finally got to open the doors on Monday.
Check out what happened, here are some of my favorites. It’s amazing they all came out of the same saggar. Some were pink, some deep reds and blacks….magical. Love them. Let me know if you want to buy one!
Happy Thanksgiving!
