road trip in ZA, day 4

Day four of our road trip began in the Addo elephant park, at first light- it's a rare day that i'm awake before Pop, but when he joined me, he brought tea in last night's wine glasses. In the meantime, I drew an aloe plant and enjoyed the bird symphony. I am no ornithologist, so I identify them my way: kazoo-bird, jewish mother-in-law bird, dove, finch, clown-trumpet bird, whoot-whoot bird, etc. Just before we were to check out, a group of elephants came down to the watering hole around which the huts had been built, and the kids started playing....

Soon enough we were driving through the park again. And again, we had a close encounter with a family of elephants. Down at one of the watering holes where lions had been spotted the day before, was a group of elephants. Except this time, Pop took the pictures because I wanted to have as unmediated of an experience as possible. (I don't love taking photos, it's just not my medium). The day before, we had been nervous to be so closely approached. This time, I was all calm as Mama and young ones slowly walked towards us.

I had not noticed before that they're walking on their tip-toes, really, and the pad of their foot is soft at the very bottom- it goes convex when they lift the foot. Elephants dance- we saw them that morning- a jelly-leather funk, heads nodding, rump-a-shakin'... ... but the family that walked so close to us again was simply walking and in the walk was a slowing of time.

We drove on washboard roads for a while through the rust and sage-colored lands towards the Shamwari Game Reserve. This is a private reserve that contains within it five of the seven natural ecosystems of south africa. The reserve is explored by safari tours from the five lodges where visitors stay. I don't know what the other ones were like but ours was SHI-SHI! wow.. when pop was researching this whole trip, he looked at the numbers and converted the currencies, making a math error in the price by a factor of ten. A few emails back and forth with me and the reservation people and he ended up with a price a mere fraction of normal, and then we got upgraded somehow, so we ended up at this place called eagle's crag (which is semi-ironic because the eagles moved around the corner because the lodge's noise bothers them). It was over the top, really, a royal treatment- a spa, conference area, bar/lounge and full dining area all for six rooms- the kind of place where they greet you at the door with a champagne flute of lemonade and have a folded bathrobe on your bed with a very yummy nougat on the table. It all kind of made me uncomfortable, and i took to going around barefoot. I mean, talk about inequality- I think we were there on the friday the Obama addressed the delegates at Copenhagen and said hey, I know what's going on, and I'm going to let it happen. Amy's in the Bella of the Beast and I'm the white girl on the exclusive safari. I don't know how to juggle these things but there's only one reason why we were there- because we're here in Cape Town for a month living cheaply on a boat in the harbor and this was our one chance to hope to see the strange and beautiful beasts happily trotting through their home. I gave my ants a rest and ate their nougat.

This place never promises, but all the guides are coordinating with each other, and I think there's some kind of nerve center, so the chances are high. Between two four-hour safaris, sleeping and eating (like royalty), I actually didn't have time to shower until we were almost gone. Our guide Antoinette showed us the solitary black rhino with his pointy lips picking at the succulent branches,

a family of white rhino

, giraffes and lounging cheetahs

and the big male lion (Pop's comment was that his territorial call, which he is making in the photo, started off sounding like indigestion)

and impalas

and blesbok and springbok and zebras

and a sqirrely little duiker. Our jeep companions the first evening had witnessesed a "tennis match" the day before, when the mother cheetah and her young ones (about 1 1/2 year old ) had been hunting. But the young ones were far too eager and had started running after their dinner at a time that dinner was far enough away that it could outrun the cheetah's sprint. So back and forth across the broad plains they had gone, the boys chasing the herd, mom doing her best with the situation, everyone resting as the jeep bumped along trying to track everything, and repeat. Eventually they stopped the jeep and had a g&t instead of chasing everyone around, and watched from the middle. No dinner was caught that evening. In the morning, they caught something small- their bellies not full but not as thin when we saw them lounging in the evening.

Our companions did not join us at dawn the next morning. We set off into the wilds, found the male cheetah having just caught a baby something. He was breathing hard, recovering and as yet unable to eat.

With the smell of blood on the air, he is at his most vulnerable (hyenas, lions), and was keeping a very watchful eye. He had just begun to eat when we needed to leave (there is a guideline that not more than two jeeps be present at a location), but of course we were all amazed to even be able to be there in the first place anyway, so it's not like we were disappointed. We went off in search of the female and her cubs, returning to the place we had found them snoozy the evening before. (and on the way, we saw a big white rhino following the scent of a lady,

and a secretary bird, which Mom particularly likes- in the eagle family, but hunts by foot).

The cats weren't there, and there was a moment of sadness. But I borrowed Antoinette's binoculars and scanned around from where they had been to who knows were- and lo! off at the far edge of the field, looking much like a dead tree, were three cats sitting close together! Soon they moved on, and there begun our bumpy chase scene. there are roads that we mostly stick to- every now and then the guide will drive a jeep over a clump of low bushes, to get the best view of something but for the most part, we stick to roads. so we criss-crossed their path, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind them, and working together- Pop and I kept track of their motion as Antoinette managed her part- the gorgeous gatos strode, hopped and trotted among the bushes- so unbelievably graceful.

We lost them for a bit, but I found them again, peering out over the field. Then they moved forward again to a place that wasn't particularly protected but the few jumpy creatures in the field didn't see them, and there we all watched and waited. This is the part where I was most struck by how odd it was to be so close to them- that we could be literally fifteen feet from these amazing creatures and they just completely ignore us- I don't get it- we're this big rattly long-bed jeep and three cats hunting just don't care.... crazy. anyway, the two boys, one bigger and more dominant, stared off in one direction. Mom was focussed in a different direction. From our vantage point, I couldn't see quite what any of them were looking at, since no four-legged lunch target seemed to be anywhere close. off on the opposite hill were some zebras (too big for cheetahs), and there was a distant springbok. In with the zebras were impalas, so maybe that's what the boys were paying attention to. Antoinette noted to us that it seemed like a mostly impossible situation so far, and that's right about the time that the bigger boy took off. Mom loped after him, the humans, and she too, presumably, let out a sigh, and the smaller boy just stayed where he was, not moving at all. Not even vaguely paying attention.

As you might imagine, the rest happened pretty fast- Antoinette moved the jeep a bit so that we could see the rest of the field where they'd run to and then directed me with the binoculars to the movements out there- I found one cheetah moving, and a group of zebras and some fleisbok. It was Mom, I was pretty sure, since she has a radio collar that I could barely see. And she was moving all right, but then she was flying- everything behind her in the binoculars was a complete blur, even the zebras were kind of a blurry (I mean, I know that's the point, but..) and she was incredible- and then, POF, dust, and a little cream and white thing kicking. Antoinette said "brilliant!", and took off to where she was. Mom caught a baby fleisbok- apparently what had happened was that the boy had chased the mess of them into the corner of the field and they had made kind of a u-turn right about the time that Mom was coming along, not expecting success. Mom wasn't able to get any of the bigger animals, but in the mayhem that her son had created, a baby had gotten left behind, and she picked him off. We bipeds in the metal cage had just been lucky enough to watch. unbelievable. I still shake my head in amazement.

So we arrive at the scene, and Mom is doing as she does, suffocating the little one, and when she's done, calls to her sons, a high-pitched but very quiet tone. The bigger boy comes, and- HA, claims the kill as his own, taking it by the throat and walking off with it. The smaller son comes along, and I guess Mom just decided to get over her exhaustion quickly at the risk of going hungry because the boys sure didn't wait for her, and they all tucked in to the small meal pretty quickly. Hind quarters first. We were so close that we could hear the snapping of tendons and the whining of the competition amongst them for a fair share.

Antoinette called the other rangers with our whereabouts and as the second approached, we drove off slowly, passing through leopard territory (figured we might as well see just how strong this lucky streak was!) on our way to our own breakfast. She told us about the acacia trees- I had asked her earlier about symbiotic relationships and she told me about wasps that lay eggs in the acacia thorns, and the way that if one acacia is being eaten (since they are very high in nutrients, so a prize food), it will broadcast a pheromone that other trees pick up, all of them turning bitter as self-defense. fascinating...

warthogs and oliphants

Thick fog has erased Cape Town this morning, and my mind drifts back to our recent adventures- may I begin with the soundtrack: O! Fortuna!- with the full chorus and kettle drums- some of what Pop and I just experienced was so amazing that a person thinks- is this some kind of setup?

We wanted to explore the shore and see what we could of the fabled wildlife. Addo Elephant Park is top on the list, with a herd of some 500 wild elephants that roam around a preserved parcel of land along with lions and jackals and all the little jumpy critters you see on TV. The park is huge, and they're trying to make a corridor to the sea (good luck, there's an interstate in the way). Most visitors drive themselves in an area about 400 square kilometers, the vast majority is 4x4 territory.

We start driving around and immediately come upon a young bull, female, and calf, relatively close, crossing the road. Cool! We watch them for a while, and Pop is content already as we move on. We see other creatures- turtles, warthogs with their mohawk hackles, a distant ostrich, some jackals- just cruising along, and then we come upon a few cars stopped on the road, two side by side, even, and a group of elephants somewhat close. Pop goes around the cars and stops 15' beyond. From there we watch. Grazing, snuffling, scooching around each other is a group of perhaps 20, including a huge bull and lots of babies, maybe 80' from us. Delighted, I use Pop's good camera also for its telephoto to see what I cannot approach. After ten minutes or so have passed, the elephants move towards us, slowly at first, grazing still, their noodle-noses picking among the acacia branches.

But then the bull starts moving a little more quickly, walking down the hill towards us in our tiny car. "oh boy" says pop in a nervous tone. Ambling along, the bull comes about three feet from me as the telephoto lense suddenly becomes absurd, his eye appraises my tiny face and I squeak a tiny greeting.

Mama and babies follow, passing us now, more than we had seen- quickly I count about 30 adult elephants as they shamble off into the scrub, with about eight little ones. Pop and I just sat there in shock. and then started texting excitedly with Mam and Jason.

That was day three. Four was even more awesome, and then five was off the bleeping hook. Meanwhile there are candlelight vigils all over the globe to send messages to the men in charge to create a fair, ambitious and binding treaty to combat climate change, and what happens? the US, once again! throws a wrench in the negotiations. oh, we'll just buy our way into the planet's good graces, hm? that's the answer! The collateral damage to the planet and her people cannot be paid for in worthless greenback, you greedy cretins. I am sick about the whole situation, disgusted by our administration's proposal, horrified to know that my country is leading the way to HELL. when, and how, can we overthrow this plutocracy? my fingers curl and my jaw clenches as I sit aboard this lovely schoolship, house of independant thinking and education about the sea, forum of personal growth and expanded vision through travel- and I sit in the harbor of a country that has experienced such horrible inequity, attempted to bring it to rights and somewhat succeeded. I'm reading Country of My Skull right now, written by a journalist who covered the whole Truth and Reconciliation process- intense doesn't begin to describe it. Twisted. highly recommended to anyone with an abiding interest in cultural psychology.

this little dude, by the way, is the rare african dung beetle. he rolls up a little roll of dung and pushes it with his hind legs as a gift for his mate. they copulate while feeding on the roll, and then lay the eggs in it. sexy, hm? (CAUTION: to next part is not suitable for minors) I remember when I was researching Japan last year, I ran into an odd fetish- word has it that there is a high-end club in Tokyo in which (hopefully just a part of) the evening's entertainment and meal is provided by a young lady who has been eating nothing but bananas for a week. She relieves herself on glass plate and it is passed around to the eager patrons. even if this isn't true, I remain fascinated by how the human species simultaneously could create this 20 oz computer I am typing on and fetishize the consumption of our own excrement. The dung beetle metabolizes the partially digested plant material, retuning the nutrients to the soil while creating more of its kind. What is the Japanese businessman doing?

I'm in South Africa

first light of day 3 finds me on the porch of our round thatched hut looking up at the southern cross and Orion turning cartwheels in the sky. the light approaches as slowly as it faded last night- our proximity to the pole turns the ecliptic into an oval from our ant-sized perspective. Within two hours of arrival, I had gone from blue-ish to pink, and my head almost hurts as I breathe in the dry white light.

with staff aboard Argo, Pop and I are free to explore the coast for a few days, so we take off early one morning and head east from Cape Town. even on the interstate, junction points become bus stops. Over a pass and deep into quiet fields, a man is pushing his shopping cart up a hill in the slow lane. we don't ask why, we wonder how he steers on the downhill. By lunchtime we are at "the Heads" of Kynsna, eating seafood. the Heads is a natural passage between the sea and a large brackish lake- we watch a small sailboat come in, quickly between her full sail and the green water surging inland. after lunch we wander out to the point. The land is craggy and orange, clusters of black mussels cling to the rocks just at that tide line where the sea so constantly throbs. the rocks rip the sea into a white foam that settles into a filigree of lace laid over her aqua fingers. I hear my ex-lover's rumbling and snapping guitar.

That night we find a guesthouse by the beach at Jeffrey's Bay. Under the influence of three days of airplane naps and now with the ocean 100 meters away, I sleep as if in a womb. I sleep in the sea, I wake in the sea, and in the morning, I am romping among the rocks finding treasures. A black rock juts up in patches, creating the points of the bay that shape world-famous surf-breaks. The uppermost surfaces are eaten by the blowing sand and biting salt. closer to the tide live the limpets and barnacles. Then there are the smooth polished places that my feet love, below the low tides, the soft corals, seaweeds and fishies, and encircling it all, the sands and that are flipped and crushed to make them- iridescent oyster shells, pink and purple and sunyellow shells, and I, a little girl with my Pop.

EPA ruling

So the EPA ruled that CO2 and methane are toxic, allowing the administration to regulate emissions without Congressional input. AWESOME. It sounds like the judicial branch lit a fire under them to get it done. the Mayor of Denver and the director of Greenpeace respond here. Within the discussion is an excellent reference to Lincoln's comments about public sentiment, as well as a much more mature picture of Obama's situation than I seem to be able to piece together... we're learning. thank you Amy! Democracy Now is the only daily global radio and tv broadcast covering the summit in Copenhagen.

war president

Hi- my computer is having major issues, but I just have to sound off from someone else's box - more war, hm? more of the same when what we so desperately need is a major overhaul- I am wearing black today. I thought he was a student of history! I thought he was going to cut through bullshit! so much for the O rising in a new dawn- it's a sunset, this is the end of an empire, plant your garden, dear ones, because this war is coming home for the holidays.

In personal news, I'm great, other than the obvious. this year has been intense and wonderful- four great firings in two kilns, friends new and known, major garden work, more construction projects, body starting to have issues, and ongoing internal work. I had wanted to get a new website up and running by the end of the year but things fall apart. I'm looking forward to next year.

on the 11th, I fly to Florida for a day and then on to Cape Town harbor for a month. I'll be relaxing aboard the Argo with Pop as we "babysit" her inbetween her time serving as a schoolship for SeaMester. As yet, we're not sure what sort of maintenance or repairs she might need in that time- it is possible that we'll spend a fair amount of time in the industrial districts. Or she might be in fine shape, and we spend a fair amount of time exploring wine country. Either one sounds great to me! Pop is great to travel with- adventurous, not rigid, food hedonist, and well-heeled but downtempo about it. I've made a new journal, and I will post here of our adventures if I have easy access to the web. Hopefully with photos..

Here in Portland, the sun is shining and we have a few days of not very cold yet to go. I will likely be refinishing a friend's fir floor. Hope everyone is well-

C

Michelle on Sesame Street

Look look! perfect!, and this on the day that I put my letter in the mail.

an today's Democracy Now hit particularly hard : a film about poverty hailed as was "an inconvenient truth",

and then the author of "confessions of an economic hitman" John Perkins on the structure that deepens that poverty

my letter to the president

I moved almost all the rest of the horse shit today, fueled by wild rice cooked in orange juice, acorn squash from my mechanic, and yogurt on top. um, yea, and a little spiked truffle.. ..mmmm

about this activated charcoal business: all very new to me. but my friend is all nuts about its potential, and I'm paying attention - there are these material technologies that seem particularly applicable to a sustainable lifestyle economy- activated charcoal seems to be one of them, particularly for carbon sequestration. check out Richard's blog post about it. and here's the wikipedia on biochar. he had made some as artpieces, Japan-o-phile that he is, and I got to crush it up and add it into the soil as I was moving it to the bed. about a square foot of charcoal went into this bed, which is probably way too little.

and I was annoyed this morning, Clinton sidling up to Israel again and condemning the goldstone report, Obama discouraging me from expecting meaningful negotiations in Copenhagen. Bullshit. If not now, when? the time is now! NOW!! now for single payer, now for climate action, now for the end of war profiteering, NOW, NOW, NOW, FUCKING NOW!!! because if not, there will be no tomorrow.... I feel abandoned.

Dear Sir-

I write to you from the cold attic of my carriage house, two candles over there, dirt under painted nails here, as I have been out in the garden all day. You have a slow and steady way, and I do yet believe that you will manage to wash some sins of past administrations. I struggle with many of your decisions, aware that you balance daily a multitude of pressures and global needs. I do not agree with many of the positions you steadfastly hold, so sometimes I despair. Until I remember your wife. I look forward to the day when the news coverage of your organic garden extends beyond her fashion sense and gives greater weight to her statements about the sensible economics of your little victory garden. Could she speak a bit more about the way a body feels after a day in the garden? Tired but satisfied, with oxygen in the blood and the brain. Cheap health insurance. Perhaps I should write to her...

But I write you because you have the voice. May I introduce myself? I am a “maker of things”, a potter; I glowed to the praise of your inauguration speech. I am a young woman with a mind made keen by travel and high-quality education, a body made hard by labor. I have strong ethics about my consumption of energy, so when it came time to establish my own studio, I designed and built an innovative kiln that fires with wood and waste vegetable oil. I fire functional porcelaineous service-ware to 2300 degrees F in a kiln that is completely carbon-neutral. I am part of the scattered army of green entrepreneurs just dying to break into this supposed new paradigm of ethical consumption, and I clarified my position in an interview with the radio broadcast Speaking of Faith.

I have been trying to dance on the grave of bloated big business but it just won't die! Here's what I'm thinking- I'm not against capitalism, I'm against exploitation. Fair business practice without abuse of power is a must in ethical society. America has lost its moral standing? Well, we should quit being complicit in the abuse of other nations' people and resources (not to mention our own). The more effectively we can keep our sights on the acquisition of the materials, their construction and sale, the more accountable the business in question can be to the community it creates. In other words, make local, buy local. Or at least national. But it's a big nation, these United States. The wheels of change turn so excruciatingly slowly. Perhaps it is this that you encountered more forcefully upon ascending to the high office in which you are now find yourself. Congress is mostly in the pocket of lobbyists, seems to me. It is so painful to watch.

What can you do? You can risk it all. Everything it took to get you to where you are now. Mary Oliver says “Tell me, what is it you plan to do? / With your one wild and precious life?” (the summer day). I feel a great pressure in the world, but not nearly enough. We are teetering on the edge of calamitous climate change. Everyone is looking at America. You know it- they are looking at you. Well, you and India and China. But, You. And Me. Little me, with no voice, no press, no gilt-edged fingernails. I have nothing to lose by giving the finger to big oil. You, well, I'm not sure what you have to lose either, quite honestly. We all die someday- you could go down in history as the president who, in a time of great crisis, gave dirty money the finger and told the truth: we are running out of oil and there is no such thing as clean coal. Harness the tides, implement bio-char, rip up the lawn. Oh, it would be marvelous! Of course, the press would roast you. Ah, but the people would hear you again!- you could just say it over and over- fair, ambitious, and binding. Explain why it is crucial, you know the facts. Fair, Ambitious and Binding. All the way to one of my favorite countries where the sun shines at midnight and the bike lanes are ten feet wide. Will you? Will you help clear the rubble and let us build a sane, ethical and accountable future? What will you do with your one wild and gifted life?

With love almost always-

(and give Michelle a hug from me)

Careen Stoll

I'm feeling kind of iffy about telling the president to tell energy conglomerates to fuck off. I can pick softer language, or I can say "throw off the puppet strings", but what do you think? there's a big difference between expressin rage and acting autonomously, and I'm not trying to come down in favor of rage.

350

please write your president.
350.org

this is the shit

horse shit! after it's been used to grow mushrooms, and then mixed 1:1 with composted yard waste. seven cubic yards of it delivered in the driveway. .
I have no delusions,( well, maybe a few) about the possibility of farming under fir trees. But with a lot of soil amendment, maybe I can get a good herb garden going in the sunniest spots. I was scanning plants on Craig's list and found this group buy organized for those interested in permaculture.
I think Obama is brilliant, but I am struggling with many of his decisions. it is a vulnerable world. let's face it, guns are not protecting us from the possibility of death. it is blood for national insecurity, blood for an oil economy on life support. I'm looking at the first lady's victory garden and hoping that her husband's slow and steady ways will catch up. and with the money that I earned from the open studio tour, I'm getting that bike fixed once and for all! as if to drive the point home, my mechanic constantly brings me the seasonal harvest- this time it was fifteen pounds of beautiful butternut squash. (I gave him a large pot for his garden)

directly related, THE YES MEN STRIKE AGAIN!

The studio tour was very pleasant. I was open both weekends again, which allowed for a small stream of visitors. I could have good conversations with almost everyone, around the kiln or the wheel as I or others worked there. I enjoyed a small tornado the morning of the first day with large quantities of seconds at four dollars a pound growing legs. Also sold a nice collection of my best large work, putting the wind in my sails... the days were full of green-builders, fellow makers, friends and sundry redheads... really nice, with a great birthday party in amongst it all...

The photo lightbox is still hanging from the ceiling. It works great- I'll write a post about its design and include results. My problem of the moment is that either my camera isn't really focussing or it isn't translating into the computer properly. I suspect the latter because Richard took some photos on my camera and they look much more in focus on his computer.. riddle me that.

I'll be teaching a one-credit course this weekend and next, "Pots for the Table". three intensive days of making, returning a few days later to glaze and on that day, I will show a slide presentation of different firing methods and results. The college has asked me to teach the course again in february, so if you're interested, it's at Clackamas Community College. all ages and skill levels welcome. cone 6: really good glazes that Richard has worked hard to refine.

He also shared this delight with me...

.

fourth firing notes

The fourth firing was blessedly free of major mishap. we might have missed a thorough body reduction in some areas of the kiln, we had a trouble spot as we made the transition to oil, and one of the crew fell suddenly ill, but other than that, I think it is fair to say that the Tin Man and I are in good communication. lovely!

Loading:
back stack. again trying to make the front as dense as possible and the back gradually looser. for this firing, I was not convinced that we would all bring enough pots, so packed in some flowerpots on the layer the second up. I used these as saggars to experiment with some localized smoking of celadons- Richard had left me some salt-soaked driftwood, so some celadon bowls are loaded under the flowerpots with the wood. there is in this firing a crescent-shaped gap running along the place where the wall meets the roof, where the best I could do is have a little line of cups and bowls tumble-stacked onto a tall bottle loaded on its side. there are three of these bottles, all of them greenware. can you find the potter's mistake? hint- it's a tumble stack. see that small shelf off to the upper left? one half of that is on a post, one half is on some bottles... it's all nice an flat in the picture, right? I anticipated the shrinkage of the bottles as I put that shelf in, but two days later after the whole kiln was loaded, I reached my arm in a spyhole and lifted the far edge of that shelf and put a taller wad onto that bottle you see there so that the shelf was pre-tilted away from the direction of shrinkage and hence lessening the chance that the large bowl loaded upsidedown would slide off the shelf as its foundation shifted. good thig too, because during the firing, I was watching the shelf gradually flatten, gradually tilt towards the wall...

and i forgot to snap a shot of the front stack, it is just a regular stack of small pots and plates, but off to the far right are two very tall bottles. so the load was more dense to the left side by far, from both the front and back stacks. as I think back on the firing itself, I think this is responsible for the way the different burners operated. the left side of the kiln was more turbulent in general, which backed up all the way to the flame leaving the burner.

this photo is looking down at the firebox opening and the bottom shelf. more specifically, it is a photo of what I'm calling a bag wall- a short wall of bricks that block the most direct path of the flame from the firebox to the holes in the floor that lead to the chimney. this wall with the roll of wadding on top is solid in the front stack ( and open at the part of the shelf facing the door). it is perforated at the back stack- with half inch gaps between quarter posts. I post the shelves regularly- the shelf does not rest on this "bag wall"


Candle and slow rise:

started at 11 am saturday in one bourry box and the base of the chimney. at about five pm was a six hour candle and the kiln seemed to be dry. increased at 75 an hour after that. the intention was to burn large chunks of wood, getting the next one warmed on the grates as the previous was about half-done underneath the grate. as the temp increased, it became clear that it was also very helpful to have an occasional super-charge of cedar in there to help "catch" the log that may be a little too dense or have too little surface area to carry on it's own really well. I also opened some more primary air in the bottom which was very helpful too. (I should note that these boxes, despite my hopes, do not function as a bourry box really should- perhaps it is the low temperature at which we use them, but the kiln does not "pull" the air from the top of the box, through the wood and over the top of the coals- the primary air is at the floor, and the hole in the top of the box is a chimney that we keep closed) (unless we're just making pizza, not firing a kiln) . we stopped using the front boxes at about eleven hundred, at which point they were sort of maxed out anyway, pushed the coals into the center of the firebox and closed the damper behind them.

Transition to wood and waste oil:

was a little iffy for a moment. I think what happened is that I had the air open so much that I burned off the coals before the whole area was warm enough to ignite the fry oil. we tried stoking the big chunks of 3x3 oak like last time, but they just rolled down the bed of coals and got in the way. so then we switched to smaller pieces of fir and then little bits of cedar, but after an initial jump of temperature (burning off coals), we had a steady slow drop (Pop reading the pyrometer like a death toll). I finally consulted the previous log and discovered that the air had been at about 1/4 to 1/5, stoking chunks of oak, so we went with that and had steady success. so! next time: air 1/4, oil 1 and a half, maybe push some of the coals into the kiln early, to warm the area, and then rebuild them in the box, to be pushed in again. perhaps do that and also don't try to do everything at once- just push in the coals and stoke wood on top of them to build a pile of wood in various stages of burn with a mild amount of blown air before adding the fry oil.... I like that idea..

also worth nothing: as I designed this kiln, I had originally intended to push in the coals and then push in a triangular target brick to force the flame into a nice smooth curve into the kiln. well, such a target brick would quickly get glued to the firebox by ash, as does the damper that I slide into place after we're done with the front boxes. but in this case, it gets glued by ash dripping off the floor above it- major issue, poor design. perhaps I could bevel the edge of that floor so that the melting ash drips to behind it

I will take responsibility for nervousness that led to quickly establishing what turned out to be two hundred degrees an hour gain. of course this is dangerous, and we gradually scaled back. In an effort to make completely sure that we had indeed gotten over the trouble spot, I kept tweaking things to increase both air and oil. scaling back brought us near the original settings to oil 1 1/2, air at 1/3 open, stoking large chunks of oak every, ah, there are no notes on this- seven? minutes, then letting the kiln chew on it for a bit, then resuming.

Body Reduction:

I will also take responsibility for totally forgetting to check the cones- 1400 snuck up on me, and by 1475 we had cone012 down or soft in most places. 08 was down in the hottest spot. fortunately I had noticed a heavier reduction starting naturally prior to checking those cones, so I am somewhat consoled. of course we immediately made the changes to put the kiln into a reliable reduction and continued as such for the next four hours. four hours is because the kiln is actually rather large inside, and the difference between front and back take some time to even out. in the third firing, we were going with the idea that one hour or 08 to 04 is a sufficient body reduction, but the short of it is that we had some pale pots in the back, so that obviously didn't work completely well. so, Tim and Jack took the kiln through this stage and well into cone 7. it looks like they began alternating which side to stoke, continuing with the dense wood, and averaged an easy 100 degrees an hour. Tim's note at 5pm/ 1800/ cone 1 to 04 is that he closed the passives (I had opened 2/3 of them), and that the kiln seemed to be running rich.

Climb:

"running rich, not climbing" writes Tim, and closes all passives aside from the one that marks the opening to the active damper and the place where we let extra oxygen into the chimney to reduce its smoke. Tim turns up the air to 3/4, left the oil at 2. saw that the flame was reaching about four feet up the chimney (one small passive out), and started treating it like a wood kiln, which it sort of is. namely, watching the flame in that "blow-hole" disappear and stoking both sides now a few(?) minutes after the flame draws back into the kiln. he noted that the coal bed looks better with this treatment. two hours later he increased the air to full, coal bed still healthy. also closed half of the bottom of the chimney opening. soon after that, he increased the oil to 2.5, in the range of cone 1 to 4, and began alternating sides again.

Glaze reduction:

by about ten pm/ 2170/ soft cone 7 in the hot spots, it looks like he tried to amp up the oil to 3 but it didn't work, and opted for a little active and passive damper and a little less air (2/3). this seemed to be successful, and after I'd helped out my Pop get some medicine, we began stoking boards wrapped up with gail nichols mix of soda every other stoke. about half of the soda went in at this point (cone 9ish). I opted to stop for a time until we had cone ten down in many places since eleven is the target cone, and then there's the soak after that..

Soda:

at 2210, I opened the air a bit to get a little more rise and drop some tens ( 2 1/2, air 3/4), and soon after, plugged 3/4 of the passives, to try to move as much of the flame to the back, for even cones. cone 8 is down in the coldest spot (right back, nine is a third in its left equivalent). other than that, we have tens a third in the hottest parts of the kiln (upper forward). thirty degrees later I resume adding soda and put settings for a mild soak (oil 2, air 2/3, active damper 2 inches in). one hour later, I have finished with the soda, and am alternating oak chunks enough to keep what I hope is sufficient reduction, every threeish minutes.

Soak:

at 2;30, we are hovering at about 2250 with the air at 1/3, oil at 2, alternating the stoking, and there are really not coals. the oak burns completely, and the air wisks the ash onto the pots. the left burner has massive clinkers obstructing (?) it's flame path- if not obstructing, at least severely redirecting. I am taking my trusty flatbar and doing my best to smash them out of the way but it seems like it's a lot easier to smack them completely off the walls of the channel once they get huge rather than shave them down as they build, if I can get the right angle on them in such a restricted space. I am confounded by how effective the burner is with such a jungle gym to bounce through. the right side is nearly clear of them. why? is it the loading? is it the way I beveled the edge of the burner block? mystery.

Hot note:

at 4;30, 2270ish (two hour soak), I make settings for a hot note- oil 3, air full, passives in. tens are almost down in the coldest back, and 12s soft in the hottest places. at these settings, and alternating a frequent stoke, it takes about a half hour to bring the kiln to 2320 with cones 11 at about a third in the back, twelves at about a third in the front. LOVE IT

Reduce Cool.

ya, you're not done yet. Pop, who rebounded remarkably quickly, came to join me at the wee hours of the lovely night, marvel at the glowing Tin Man, and be my scribe for cone readings. but I dispatched him to bed again, since I knew I would collapse in a few hours and need his or someone's help for real. I chinked up the kiln at about 5 and began reduce cooling, stoking alternately into the floor and the fireboxes. Since I have liner glazes (mostly gail's red shino), I do not want to reduce too hard, and practice the Simon Levin method which he calls downfire: reduce, reoxidize, repeat. kind of a mellow reduce cool- I remember the "sparkleplenty" pots that he made for a firing or two in his little cat kiln by reduce cooling "proper", and many examples of scum and crust at Utah- no thanks- for this firing, I basically waited many minutes after any wisps of smoke had gone before stoking mildly again. certainly no belching smoke higher than 2000.

as i chinked up the kiln, it became clear to me just how much oxygen was coming in the fireboxes, so I abandoned stoking into that space, chinked the spy, and stayed with the floor only. we'll see how effective it is. I was hoping to find a great little indicator down low in the door but had to settle for reading a place where the chamber meets the chimney- also low. my hope is that since much of the wood was towards the front of the kiln, and the indicator, low and towards the back, that it shows an effectively distributed flame. trouble is that this way, I'm stoking right below openings in the floor that are closed, so I'm not sure quite how to -- maybe make a trick brick again, just for reduce cooling.- pushing aside a k-wool covering over the front holes..

Pop took over in the daylight part of morning, I fell asleep in the bathtub and then got a chicken from my buddies at Diggin Roots Farm roasting in one of the pizza ovens, Allison came over, we opened some champagne, made some smashing good pizzas, holy cats, I was in heaven. of course it could all look terrible in there, but just to have another successful firing lightens my step...

at the end of that day, monday, Pop remarked that it was probably a really bad idea to leave those burners in place, surrounded as they were by radiating heat but now without the cooling influence of air passing through them- (the electric motor has a varnish around each copper strand- should it melt, it would short the whole thing out) and sure enough, I removed them but had a tiny heart attack (again) when we plugged one in elsewhere and it ran really irregularly. so with my last ounce of energy, I cleaned the innards as he disassembled them to find out if I'd killed them. I hadn't. thank god. I clean them every time, but only one of the parts. anyway, thanks pop.

ah, so we went through about sixty-five gallons of oil, fifty sticks of oak 3inx3inx3feet, about nine cubic feet of cedar fence boards and a pile of fir and other assorted large chunks of wood that would be about three by three by four feet, ish. so, about another 2/3 cord of wood.

thinking to unload on sunday, if anyone cares to visit...

oh ya, and as I was checking email and news, I ran into this

something

windy today- stirring my blood, disturbing the cat. winds of change? Avaaz.org organized a global wake-up call- check out the blog here.

the fourth firing will occur this weekend, scheduled just ahead of the Portland Open Studio tour. I participated last year and liked it a lot. I much prefer helping people understand the context of my process by having them visit my studio and see the kiln.

on self-indulgence

true to journal form, I'm working out this thought as I write: I've been thinking about some of the more esoteric forms of art that I've experienced with this TBA festival. Now I'm listening to a cd of Henri Dutilleux, contemporary classical, a concerto for cello, another for violin- I don't really love it, at first half-listening. How is that different from the performance by Miguel Gutierrez which was-- a spoof? not exactly, on the ways of theater and the affected life- I was sitting there in the audience thinking that this might be the worst thing I'd paid to see in a while, and then it started to make a lot of sense and become totally brilliant at the end. And how does this jive with the performance by Meredith Monk that I saw as an punky little whipper-snapper of a college art student- there was this part with arm gestures and I didn't get it, told her so in the q+a session afterward. was it un-get-able? or was it me? My Mam didn't really get Miguel's piece, and I still don't get this thing by Dutilleux. someone actually walked out on Meg Stuart, and I could have wrung his neck. her piece was so subtle, aching, so painfully beautiful- well, he didn't get it. or maybe he got it so well that he couldn't stand it and had to leave.

so what makes esoteric? that's the word that I used to describe japanese tea ceremony at some point- esoteric, to me, is the point at which seemingly comprehensible action or ritual has passed into the realm of code. it is only for the initiated, it becomes secret in its mystery, and that is the sad paradox about some of these performances- the message is beautiful, brilliant, timely, prosaic, incomprehensible, because it is delivered in this code that is known to the artist and the initiates but not to those dear people who would perhaps also love to participate- and it's not that the artist is trying to exist in this rarefied word, it's just that when you move so thoroughly within the medium, it begins to eat you. wonderfully, but still.

. my medium possesses certain qualities to which I must tend. I work by the ton, for example. (bricks, clay, wood...). ceramics studios don't move very easily. but I have salt in my blood and ants in my pants. I see these dance performances like "crushed" by seattle-based locust, and I am JITTERY with energy- I can't sit still! that could be me! what have I done, enmeshing myself into a medium that demands stability?! I bike home, hardly aware of traffic, I collapse on the couch- an entire facet of my body's urges finds no outlet in my chosen medium. I resolve to find a way to do both, even as I know I am an over-ripe pear of a professional dancer. fool, it is too late- and I love my life anyway, why turn it upside down just to think I could do everything? (but there are other ways- collaborations, installations, audience-participations....)

so, about self-indulgence- that's really the wrong word for it, but I will persist, because it addresses some other issue that makes me uncomfortable: of course we artists are self-indulgent. I derive intense pleasure from caressing the porcelain. I would bet money that despite all the active messaging that Gutierrez brought to the stage, and all the voices in the head, he also just really wanted to make some post-modern look-at-me chaos, cuz it's intellectually hot. and there are many channels by which the human animal inputs information. Mam "got it", even if she didn't "understand" on a mental level. I venture to say that successful art that is also esoteric is when the mystery is unravelled in a way that the audience can glimpse its inner workings. no great shakes, that comment, but who's to judge?

the serrated edge of art: interpreting culture, integrating, relevant, of service, which requires a whole set of psychological skills in addition to technical ones. All the voices in the head become overwhelming sometimes and I turn to my wheel with watery gratitude- I can be all intellectual in creating installation art and feel my ego making its joyous noises. but here's a plate. it can represent Emptiness, have a Message, be Important, be a work created by Careen Stoll. or you can eat your morning eggs off it and drop it into the sink where it gets moldy a few days later and maybe the cat breaks it a few years down the road and you buy another one for thirty bucks. When my head starts overheating, I find comfort in that kind of anonymity... . . my private esoteric ritual of wedging, centering, shaping the clay.

ok, that being said! it's a big world out there and I'm off to the next show!

(posting this after the show- I got to talk to that hot hot dancer that I so admired in crushed the other night- chicka's shit is tiight- her name is Ellie Sandstrom, and she was so kind and encouraging to my tentative ideas of making some more intermedia work- she said "every day, do something that you're a little afraid of"- I was asking her about the exhibitionism rush of being on stage, finding the appropriate venue for the urges of wild body expression- a club isn't always the right space- on stage, you are controlling the gaze in a sense, setting up a designation between audience and performer, a space that is like condoned crazy space- she suggested that I maybe choreograph a phrase and perform it at the club, maybe just a few nights, a few friends- a special moment- I'm trying to imagine actually planning it- well, it was great to meet her)

health care

interesting, as I had heard that my dear president was thinking of dropping a public option for health care, I felt compelled to send him a letter. a few days later, my doc friend Dianne sends me this. get on the bus! but lets keep pushing for that essential public option- I follow his reasoning to hold companies accountable, but as I understand, he is still amenable to dropping the public option, which would take some serious guts out of reform. that info from the good peeps at Democracy Now!

on generosity

today my potting friend Richard and I rented a u-haul trailer, drove a little ways outside town, picked up a cord of wood from a custom mill and took it to the kiln on the opposite side of town.where we cut it up, split and stacked it with the help of another lady on the crew. three people, six hours, 2000lb dry fir, everything swept up- I am pleased. In the bundle that we purchase was a wide variety of cuts- some were beasties of slabs cut from the round tree to make a square board, an eight foot piece might have weighed 150 lb before being cut.. other pieces were as thin as kindling, and a few were clean boards an inch thick- perhaps warped, perhaps too irregular, but aside from that the kind of wood that is sold as "rough-cut" lumber for so and so per board foot at the yard. nice stuff, for firewood. This I culled out and took home, and it is this small pile in the driveway that has sparked the blog entry.

potters who fire with wood as their primary fuel become connaiseurs of the qualities of woods: density and sap content, silica and mineral content, flame characteristics, moisture content, ease of splitting, odor when splitting or burning, etc. Some potters aren't too picky about their wood source, and some pay rigorous attention to type, quantity and timing of woods entering the kiln ( in addition to the host of other factors) in order to affect certain results. my lady Lindsay Oesterritter is one of those, and she reaps the benefits of knowledge by creating pots that are awesome and also reproducible- this is a tall order for a wood kiln. Point being, know your fuel to know your work. My kiln requires fry oil of course but also about half a cord of wood- some of it chunky fireplace stuff, and some of it no longer than ten inches, no wider than three. and I need a good few wheelbarrows worth of that size, which is not so easy to come by. I took advantage of the opportunity to select out exactly what I needed from the full cord (4'x4'x8') that we towed along the freeway today, destined for a different kiln that we will fire in two months.

My firing is in three weeks, and there is much yet to be done to prepare- I was relieved for the opportunity to check one off the shopping list of kiln needs, but it meant that I was taking some of the cream off the top of our work for one further down the road. I voiced my question to my friend and he, wise old dude that he is, said "so long as you get good pots out of the firing...." which immediately addressed the big question of the firing. and the bigger one than that: how exactly does one's intention work in the world? The man fixing my motorbike doesn't charge me for all his time. I say "these things come around", and I reminded him to give his wife my card and visit me someday. Certain friends always at least move to pick up the tab. My lover in MN helped me make my wheel, helped me fire my kiln, helped me collect wood for the brutal winters. We help, we love, and the intention of our action carries further than the physical work. Maybe that sounds metaphysical, maybe it is- to me it relates to that "economy of good juju" that I talked about in the interview with SOF. (except that I didn't say juju, or intention, but its all the same). Richard knows that I am not trying to skim some cream off our hard work today out of malice- I just need to get something else done too and I have plenty of time to make it up if a lack is perceived.

But this is the way that he expressed it to me as the day eased into a night of merriment, (he of Buddhist tendencies): he chafed a bit at being suddenly in the position when (yet again), he was assisting someone in acquiring something that they needed tanjental to the task at immediate hand. and then he remembered that it was absurd to value "his" time, "his" need, his agenda as separate or more important. I mused on Joel, my ex-loverman in MN, who was so generous with his time and energy that he found himself frustrated with a lack of reciprocation in like kind. He was self-observant, and would also say that one of the biggest things that he learned from his hitchhiking days was "pass it on"- that generosity is frequently not a two way street, but an unstructured flow of intention. ("and attitude!", my Pop would chime in at this point.

related, I am not at Burning Man right now. any spare cash that I have is going to the motorcycle that may take me there next year. I have never been to Burning Man, though I dearly want to. mostly I want to see the awesome art projects and of course dance all night. But I was telling a friend about how I am managing to trade my work for massage and food, and he says to me "you don't need to go to burning man- you're bringing it right here". Never having attended, I had forgotten that aspect of the big meeting of minds- it is an intention to a different paradigm of commodity exchange. and I must stress that, as with a marriage that lasts, the success of the endeavor hinges on an attitude of generosity.

Mama's in town, I'm off to meet her. Art in the Pearl art fair is this sorrowfully rainy weekend, and the Time Based Arts Festival!! for the next ten days.. kiln wood is collected and under cover, large pots are drying, my back is better, it's time for some visiting with the dear Mama.

money

Just got the cash for my help last week: 200 clams for 20 hours. I tried to work hard and smart both but I have a big twinge in my low back, and my shoulder is off. I was a beast of burden, was it worth it? no. (I framed in skylights tho!) But it does illustrate my shifting relationship to money. Soon after college I moved to the woods of mostly rural minnesota and tried my hand at being a studio potter. my rent was 125/mo, because there was no incoming water, no insulation, no easy heating. I accepted money from my parents for a few months to get started and then I didn't anymore, finding instead a job first in a cabinetry shop and then as a carpenter. For a variety of reasons, I didn't want their money. I needed to see my spine, know what I could do alone. Those became the best three years of my life. I left MN not knowing the full breath of all my accomplishments or the depth of my love. But they were not years characterized by gallery-hopping, expensive travel, or partying with other young people in or out of the arts/ crafts scene. sixty-hour weeks were common. and then there was the winter wood to split.

I worked through grad school, of course. Utah is not as generous to its grads as many others, so my parents paid the room and board if not tuition. And I worked as best I could when I got here. 11/hour doing teck work at a community college, 11 dollars worth of gas to drive each day. easier work than roofing, but where are we going, kids? it's not that helping the ceramics department at a sweet community college is beneath me or some shit, it's this: I was a lively thirty, thoroughly educated, in a vibrant city, and ready to get a move on. I talk to friends whose parents do not have the ability to help them get established the way mine do, and they don't hold it against me. Why should I hold it against myself to still keep a low overhead but accept the aide so lovingly given? a sense of hyper-equality? the remaining shackles of a socialized money-based measurement of worth? because my Pop is such a successful entrepreneur, that I too should be able to live up to his example? or is it more oblique: in a twisted hypocrisy, I labor to create and propagate objects that fit into lifestyles only the affluent can maintain in this strained economy/cultural mentality. I refuse this paradigm! I refuse to think that my work is relegated to luxury! would it have helped to have moved to Holland when I was still semi-portable? who knows, now I must doggedly create the world I have in my dreams, and possibly die a frustrated visionary.

look at what Rachel Maddow says about it

my battery is dying, I know this post was a frustrated ramble, I'm going to go make pots now. I don't know what else to do with myself. bye.

high summer

with the garden tomatoes, fresh mozzarela and basil. yumma!
so this is what's going on in my little world:

I was raised to be a refined lady. But I prefer dirt. So for a while there was some conflict. A friend pointed out that I can act the part in a surprising variety of social situations. That's a step up from many years of reshaping myself to belong somewhere. That might mislead; lets say many years of exploring different facets of my personality. (Assuming there is a core Self, which is a notion I can neither shake nor fathom). Well, so there I am writing informal essays about sustainability, and here I am helping the roofers. Both of these disparate worlds are comfortable now, and I'm figuring out how they inform each other. through the writing process. so here you go. this has not much to do with pots. It has to do with assumptions because it all got twisted one afternoon, and then straightened out again.

One morning, two weeks after I thought it would happen, I woke up to this. Soon after, this was my garden:wa- BAM! I knew what to expect in terms of mess. the big unknown was the nature of the crew- I would be joining them for this job and I was a little nervous about it. The two gentlemen I had worked with in Minnesota were exceptional, I knew I had been spoiled by their respect. But respect is earned, and I got to work. On the ground, slogging bins with me, was an attractive young man who sort of smiled once or twice. Cutting plywood and laughing easily was a grizzled and snaggletoothed older man with looong grey hair. Up above was an agile ripped little monkey of a dude who handled full sheets of plywood like some people handle flying pizza dough. He had a sort of vocal tag, "brrrra-ta-TA!" that he's call out every once in a while, mixed in with the jokes flying around with similar agility. He had a side-kick, much slower on the uptake, but kind to me also. And then the boss, another gnarl-knuckled grandpa who moves slowly and deliberately, careful in his decisions and very considerate in his manner. The back of his neck was oddly pale from where he had just recently cut the blond braid that he had worn for twenty years. Probably when it got to be 108 degrees recently and even I gave up and just lay in a hammock (detangling dread-locks but that's another hair story). Later, we were joined by the contractor's son, described as flakey. Small and energetic, with a very large red truck with tinted windows and a monogrammed tires. To his credit, he did not chafe when I called it "fancy-ass", leaning as I was upon my own dear beater (perhaps more to support him than me). So that's the crew, and me. motley.

Perhaps it's excessive to compare it to ballet, but there were moments when I was moved by the fluidity of motion that is achieved when it is repeated so many times that the body becomes tuned to the subtle shifts of weight that occur when, say, a 2x6 spins on the shoulder, or a sheet of ply balances in the crook of a hammer as it is set into place. In the shorthand of terminology and focus, quick work was made of a difficult task. Without word or eye contact, one dancer transfers a sail-shaped weight, another sallies through with a wheelbarrow, another launches a 2x6 ten feet away to the perfect spot, another hoists a bin that must have been fourty pounds over his head and onto his shoulder. again. I found my stride within it very easily, mostly listened to the fish tales at lunch break, it was all good. On the fourth day, they tore off the largest section of my landlady Susan's roof. there were two layers of shingles and three layers of composite and this is what it looked like when half of it had already been cleaned up:
At this point, we had a lunch break. I ate in the garden and quietly joined the others after a while. A question came up about a ho, and I swear I heard a joke in the corner about how she was waiting in the garage. (this being where I live). and I was not necessarily pretending to be asleep, but I was resting with my eyes closed, and I did not react, though I heard the side-kick snort a little. someone was talking on their phone and lost his train of thought. A silence fell over the group, the cell-phone conversation faltered and resumed, and a few moments later, we resumed work. I put on the noise-cancelling headphones and bent my head to the rest of the rubble. Yes, I know that some men can be grade A dickheads just like some women can become raving bitches. We are only human, after all. But what threw me off was to have another reminder of just how tenuous is the connection between my judgement of someone's basic character and their judgement of mine.. How amazing it is that we navigate this crazy world by leaping from one assumption to the next, constantly, one shifting log, one sinking ship, one fickle friend, a flick of the eye, one hug, two words, an omitted fact, a house of cards- how can we build trust at all? But we do. We are pack animals, we need each other.

So I thought about it, eyes smarting at the injustice, I wondered what to do, I imagined confronting him, oh the way my words would cut! and then I realized that the best thing would be simply to ask him why, and then I realized that I was going to let it go. The rest of the guys were being nice to me, extra-nice, it seemed. Fine, in two hours and three days they'd be gone, and everything would be quiet again. and then at the dwindling end of the day I asked the gentle old dude if I had heard right and he had no idea to what I was referring, walked off mumbling about how he didn't go in for that stuff. A minute later the boss comes to me and said he was referring to a pneumatic tool that helps remove shingles, and that if anyone on the job were indecent in that way, they'd be fired immediately. I was relieved. But between you and me, it didn't answer the question. Was I just stoned and misheard a joke? Or did I hear right, and through well-meaning but misplaced explanation, all offense was ironed out and we'll just finish your roof now, m'am, thanks for the help, how badly do you want the extra cash? The ballet is now suddenly some fucked-up mating dance between a monkey and a crazy bird. I'm going to know what I don't know, politely ignore him for the remaining day of this job, and decline the numerous job offers.

I took the opportunity to frame in some sunlight: these windows are nothing short of magic in the space!
(and then I got to clean my room with a leaf-blower!)

third firing results

Were awesome! Tin Man found his heart.


I was all packed up to take professional-quality photos and bailed at the last minute. We're getting the roofs re-done next week, so I'm pre-occupied with that, but after that and a workshop I'm teaching, I'll get back in the studio and get that taken care of properly. For the moment, I'm sorry, this video may suffice. Tim posted photos on his blog:
and here are my larger pots.I will focus on getting these available in an online store in November. In the meantime, if you see something you want, write me and I'll get you a better photo. Thank you for your inquiries and encouragement!

so, the results:

we used 75 gallons of veg oil and about 3/4 cord of wood, much of that wood was oak/mixed hardwood

for one thing, the loading was pretty good. perhaps a bit tight, but not bad. the innermost parts of the stack were too quiet for the porcelain, but the dark clay still looked lovely, and glazed ware would be just fine. the loading did seem to allow the flame to move to the back of the kiln more effectively, but it's kind of hard to figure out at this point which was more effective, the load, the placement of the flue, the length or timing of the soak, or the degree of perforation of the little bag wall that blocked the most direct flame movement from firebox to flue. these details will be the source of continued experimentation. As you read, my potting friends, I would love to hear your thoughts, on these matters or others.

cone 12 was flat in the hottest part of the kiln while 11 was 1/3rd in the coolest, the back bottom. I like this, I was going for this, because there was very little glaze in the kiln, and I wanted to make sure that the surfaces would be glassy and the clays vitreous. what I don't like is a super-shiny surface, which happened to the porcelain but not the dark clays. I will research how to reduce cool gently enough to avoid scumming the glazes (soda surface) at high temperature but early enough to matte them out before they've solidified completely. we were overly cautious this time about when and how hard to begin reduce cooling. also, the pyrometer had been moved and it started melting, so we probably could have started adding wood (soot) earlier than we did. as it is, I think we started in earnest at about 2000*F, lightly before then.

we added seven and a half pounds of soda to a 70 cubic foot kiln that had not seen soda before. half of that went in as a Gail Nichols mix with water and whiting, and half was sprayed in. the nozzle on the sprayer was set to "jet", and did it ever. there were little freckles of soda in the most inaccessible places, and almost too much soda on the most exposed plates and bowls. as in, pools of glass that, if they had been more, would run the risk of cracking out. se.e the plate on the right- that's soda glass so perhaps next time we will add soda only by solid, and see what that does. there was a problem with the soda that I gleefully sprayed in the top of the dome- it bubbled up under the shelf wash and glued the shelf- binder to the nearby pots that were not wadded on tall wads. unfortunately, I had thought of this as a coveted spot and put many people's work up there- my apologies for the unforeseen. we ground down the shelves very thoroughly and I put two coats of wash on them for the next firing.

Color: score! deep reds in the dark clay.
lots of orange in the porcelain, salmon and rose colors following flame lines on pots nearest the fireboxes- overall, it seems that the reduction was more thorough in the front of the kiln than the back, and of course most intense closest to the fireboxes. I didn't love the darkness of the ash speckles- perhaps this is the influence of the oak? where the ash really accumulated, it did melt together into a pleasant clear/green glass, a bit flat as far as ash goes, but green at least. I look forward to firing the kiln through the wall flue alone, closing the floor altogether, and trying to go for a more directional flame mark. as it is, there was a lot of evidence of interesting flame mark. but it's not an anagama, never could be.

and lastly, new forms: I do like the rather self-contained bowls that I have made for ten years now, and I've also been playing with a form-moulded open oval bowl that I like a lot too. (in that third photo) it's more "pedestal-like" with four little feet, more formal feeling. and I've made an oval plate version of it too, which I think I'll make into a full-sized plate now. those feet take a long time to get right, but I'm really loving the oval shape, so expect more of those in the future. the closed-in bowls now have divots in them for a fun sexy finger-hold. and the cups still have divots for either a thumb, or how I hold them with the middle finger. pitchers are still evolving. I really like making ones with a low indent, forcing the user to cradle it with two hands, one at the belly and one tilting it at the foot, but the customer's kitchen will be the best laboratory. now that I'm out of school, I need to seek critique. please know that I love and need feedback on my changing design ideas! function is still essential. I like pushing the user to re-think, but not to the point of interference with the essential usefulness of the object. I do finally seem to have nailed a good teapot- I have one matching set from this firing and one matching set from the woodfiring that I did with Richard- can you believe it- front and center in a small anagama, and a whole tea set survived! unreal--

big love, everyone!

third firing notes

here's half of the crew of the third firing jst before lighting the fire in the left bourry box on tuesday july 7. Alyssa and Dianne. Tim joined us later after his day job. Jack was tending his dear lady and unable to join this time.

front stack.
back stack
wad gad
and once we were done with the bourry boxes, this was the first pizza. truly a delicious accomplishment's.

notes: analysis of results to follow in a few days. we will unload on thursday. peeking in, colors look great!

Stacking:
kiln was very uneven last firing, so trying to really force that flame to the back of the kiln with a tight stack in the front, loose pots in the back. the larger pots are much easier to load in the back anyway, so it was an easy plan to follow. I tried to load incrementally tighter as we moved to the door, allowing for staggering of shelves and groupings of pots so that there were some very tight spaces and also looser ones. there were six openings in the floor, three inches in diameter each, under the back stack. I rigged the trick brick in the chamber wall, and rested k-wool over two openings in the floor near the door, in case we needed more flue opening. There was a perforated bag wall of quarter posts that blocked the most direct route from the firebox to the damper. otherwise, no bagwall. stacking area is three feet wide by four feet deep by three and a half tall on average, with the firebox openings on either side of the four foot length. two days to stack

Candle and Slow Rise:
Candled for seven hours, in one box. one foot fire at the base of the chimney, to induce draw. increased temp 100* an hour after that, supposedly. But it's tricky, of course, because a small fire can easily be frightfully overstoked. so it looks like the night shift was safe and at an overly-slow rate of climb, bringing us to 742* by 6am on wednesday, when I took over. part of the problem is that stoking the boxes seemed to be very difficult because of the backpressure when the door is opened. I shut as much of the passive air openings as possible, a more thorough job than I had done before, and that did help somewhat. the shift changeover was bumpy. I thought I was doing exactly what the night shift had done, but the kiln suddenly jumped a hundred degrees in fifteen minutes. if there are cracked pots in there, it's probably from that moment. (same as second firing).

during this part, I was trying to get the primary air to draw from the top of the boxes, as a proper bourry box would do. I was not successful. basically, the kiln does not seem to draw hard enough at those low temperatures to pull air downward through the wood, through all the channel and into the chamber before it gets to the flue. perhaps it would help to chink every other possible air draw and passive damper. I suppose we could continue with the flame in the chimney to increase the draw, but that seems silly. Most likely, I will open a little more air space at floor level of the bourry boxes, and let the opening at the top of the box function only as a chimney for the pizza oven function. at about 800*, the coals began to clog up the opening, so I let the wood burn down, removed the front two grates, pushed the coals forward into the chamber, and resumed firing in the box. I did this on both sides but because the left box had been the starting box, it was significantly warmer than the right and so it "re-started" more easily than the right. Overall, there were a lot more coals on the left, which became an issue later. this did take care of some of the problem of backpressure at the door, but really, the boxes become maxed out at 1000*.

Transfer to Oil and Wood:
9 am at 1000*, I pushed the coals into the center of the firebox alley, closed the damper leading to the bourry-box, opened to the oil burner, and set the oil to fire at 1/5 of the available pressure. (* consider pressurizing the tank for better total pressure). this turned out to be too little, as Tim researched the old log entries to find that 2 had been the low setting in the past firing, with the air wide open. In this firing, I started out with 1/5 and 1/6th of the total vent open on the blower. remember to tilt the burner slightly forward or else the oil flows back into the burner and gets in the fan blades. I stoked short pieces of dense wood into the coal bed now at the center of the firebox to maintain a wick of flame into which the atomized oil droplets can fly. this firing, I did so with ozzie fishtail oak that had been used to separate shipping crates, so there may be some iron flakes on them. we'll see if it's a mess on the pots. I maintained a good bed of coals on the right while continuing to stoke the left bourry-box. temp hovered around 1070*. once I was comforted that the right burner was happy, I set about transferring the left side. this side was hotter to begin with, and had more coals. I pushed them too far into the channel and accidentally blocked off the opening through which the burner's fuel and air are moving. so when I went to turn on the blower, I had to leave the air on full for a long time to burn coals off, and then when the oil sprayed on them, it was more of a crust than a wick. eventually, I went in there with a flat piece of angle iron over the top of the burner port to break up the coals. it was half a day before the two sides seemed to burn hot and evenly.

questions- there was a lot of soot created between 400 and 1300* . too much? break an iron-bearing tile.
did the greenware in the kiln survive the rough treatment in this time as well?

Oil and Wood body Reduction:
by 11 am the kiln was settling into an increase of about 100*an hour. the pyrometer was on the right side of the kiln, and registered much more effective temp increase with stoking on that side of the kiln. (which was also the side on which the firebox seemed hotter in general). temp might spike as much as 100* in a stoke, nothing measurable from a stoke on the left firebox. Stoking two pieces of oak (3x3x9) and two pieces of cedar sticks every five minutes, watching the coal bed for a size that seemed healthy but not blocking air openings. at 1pm, Tim read up in the old kiln log and changed the air to full and the oil to 1 1/2, which led to a quicker cycle. the left coal bed began to catch up/ warm up. by 1:45 pm, temp at 1520, ^012 down top front. closer attention to maintaining reduction and passive dampers out to burn off excess smoke.. 3 pm 1675* , ^04 soft front right, ^012 down back left ( coolest place in kiln). by 4 pm ^1 is down the hot spot, pyro at 1800*, and a large pot has fallen into the left stoke aisle, occupying half the available space. but its position is such that it is acting as a bag wall to deflect the flame towards the cool spot. the doctor advises that perhaps there is not a problem yet, wait and see. every few hundred degrees, the oil turned up half a point

Evening :
Oil is 2.5, air open, passives in, active damper out, stoking

every so often (five to ten min). the general principle of the fuel situation seems to be that the kiln asks for a slowly shifting proportion of wood and oil, more wood at lower temperatures, just a bit later on.

the large pot in the stoke aisle didn't seem to be a problem at first. cones fell at the same rate on that side as the other. hot spots in the kiln were towards the front and middle, cooler at the very front by the door, and at the very back. throughout the evening there was a steady climb of about 80* an hour until cone 8 was moving in three places, at which time we commenced adding soda. oil down to 1.5, air at 2/3, passives out. six pounds total of the gail nichols recipe were painted onto small boards, and four pounds of baking soda was mixed into hot water into a sprayer in a dilute half and half solution. this makes seven pounds of soda going into the kiln. this is a 75 cubic foot kiln, about 50 of which is stacked, and no soda has been added before. the brick is high-alumina.

Night: at 11pm, kiln is hovering at 2060*, 31/2 lbs of soda have been added, and two gallons of water, in the process. the draw rings show a nice buildup, but of course they are right in the line of fire. the water cools the kiln about 100* as it is added. cones have been steadily dropping, but the right side of the kiln is notably hotter than the left and front, except for the pack stacked deep into the kiln, which is now equal to the right side. I am underslept, underfed, and rather nonchalant about directing the show. Richard and co show up with tea and good cheer, but it takes me quite a while to refocus on the fact that the kiln is not climbing as effectively as he could be, and I am not in adequate reduction. But I'm pretty dead, so at about one am, with Dianne's help, he takes over for a few hours as I catch some rest. They tweak little things and maintain about 2140*. the damper is a third closed, passives are out. oil at 3, air open about 3/4. there was little cone movement in this time.

Thursday Morn:
5 am. I close the passives and open the damper, turn up the oil and open the air, pull the trick brick in the back wall and push open the front two flue openings, all to no real effect. cone 8 soft at the door and far back of the kiln, tens at a half where they sit on the shelves closer to the center. I am able to get about a cone higher in the next few hours, but the oil at the left burner is leaking, unburned, where the large pot is pushing the flame backwards now. I break it with a piece of leftover flat bar snuck into a gap above the burner block, and manage to push the shards of it out the channel and into the bourry box. it did not seem to take out anything else in the process. yike!

for two hours, I notice no significant change. I'm still stoking small pieces, as my previous buddies had been, going with a less wood more often theory. but this kiln doesn't really run on wood at this point. I switch back to the large chunks of oak, building a coal bed, and the oil is now 4. I stoke one side and then the other, taking my cue from when the wisps of smoke leave the little cracks at the top of the kiln. this works well, and by 9 am, we are at 2222* with ^9 at 1/3 all around, 11 in some places. 9:30 is a whole cone hotter everywhere, almost two cones in the hottest spots. Chris Baskin highly recommends a three hour soak, at this temperature. we kind of soaked all night, at a cool cone 8. I would like to know how much more effective the soak is as the temp increases. Gail recommends a two hour soak after adding her soda mix ( which she does at cone 8)

Soak:
oil to 1 1/2, air 1/2. damper at half, passives out.
on a whim, I sprayed in the last two gallons of soda, which dropped the temp from 2250 to 2150. after the kiln regained only 20 degrees, I brought the oil and air up again, less than before (3) , and opened the damper some. kiln climbed in the next few hours to end on a hot note at 1 pm on thurs. I did a little experiment just before ending. Can the kiln increase temp on oil alone? I put the oil to 5, air wide open. the pyro rests at 2236 without change for five minutes, but as soon as I stoke one piece of wood, I get two degrees out of it. ^11s are down most places, 12 in one place. I'd say that's a hot note.

Reduce Cool:
shut all three dampers and pull the passives. done with the oil, and at first, tried to stoke just above the burner in that little spy-hole in the floor. wood got stuck on the clinkers. began stoking under the floor, where I had opened the opportunity of access to the sub-floor. I'm not sure how much smoke is too much until the glazes become solid. must research. a draw tile pulled at about 2100 revealed that we had not scummed the glaze. I did do a local re-oxidization for a mere 30* at 2200*, at the side-stoke holes, and the back spies. We began reduce cooling at 2030* , continuing to 1600*, which lasted 12 hours. Dianne did a fine job finishing off the firing. she stoked at the sub-floor and in the side-stoke. I popped some champagne, took a shower, and gave up on being intelligent.

the kiln cooled 1000* in the next 24 hours and then 200* in the day after that.