Second Firing Better Than the First

I guess I got spoiled having my kilns loaded and fired for me at the arts center. It's been years since I've fired my own kilns. Let alone any kiln with brand new elements. My first firing in the new kiln went horribly awry. All the work bloated. Rich dark clay bodies like mine will do that since they are full of organic impurities. My strategy for this batch of pots was to bisque fire hotter and slower to get all the volatile gases out before the clay begins to vitrify.

I never paid too much attention to Val Cushing's lectures during graduate school since at the time I was making sculptures. The technical information pertained to crafting pristine glazes for functional pottery. Often if I did the reverse of what was said making glazes pit, crawl and penetrate the surface. Thankfully I kept good notes and reviewing them was like taking the course for the second time.

When I was in Alfred last summer I discovered Val still sells his orange spiral bound lecture book at the local grocer, Kinfolk. We were his last class before retiring in 1997. It was difficult to imagine who could fill his "clogs." Since then glaze testing at Alfred has greatly expanded from low fire to mid range incorporating much more color than back in 1996. Look at an old Nelson book of ceramics and you will see the most uninspiring collection of brown pots. It's hard to believe that was my undergraduate textbook. Of course back then there weren't encapsulated pigments like those I use today to safely create bright red and orange. And I would not have fathomed becoming a potter myself.