Saturday, April 25, 2009

Kiln Opening!

I fired the kiln last night and got to open it today to find all kinds of goodies! Last year at about this time Mike the Kiln Doctor tuned up my kiln and it's been fired very efficiently ever since. I have an old Skutt kiln and still fire with a kiln sitter (no fancy programable kiln for me!) and I'm getting to Cone 6 in about 4 or 5 hours after turning all the switches to High. The kiln is not only efficient, but also very reliable so that, barring any wild experiments on my part, I can be confident about the consistent outcome of my glazes. Here are a few pictures of today's opening.

The first photo shows my kiln gods at attention. Over the years, I've collected lucky stones, toys, magnets and other such things that I've been placing on the kiln to ensure a good firing. Right now my gods include a small frog; a magnet showing a spider with a funky spiderweb that says "Try, try again!"; small stone with a drawing of Kokopeli, the god of Mischief; another stone with the word "Balance" etched on it; a small white stone with a perfect hole in it; and so on... I do like stones, as you can tell... They always have something to whispe to me.

1 comment:

Diary of a Madd Weekly Painter said...

Were the kiln gods good to ya? You need to show us what you pulled out of that kiln after it cooled. I'm curious but I remember you have not been feeling well. So I'll wait.