Wood-fired

Woodfire is my favorite way to fire pottery. Not only do I find the pieces more aesthetically up my alley, but the process itself is nothing short of magical. I feel like an alchemist or wizard or something while I’m woodfiring. I mean, think about it: You use water to help shape your clay and then you allow the clay to air-dry until they can be safely fired. Then you load your clay pieces into a giant cave made of earth (the kiln). You start a fire inside the kiln before sealing the door so you can better control the air flow and contain the heat. Not only that, but clay is earth! We just turn it into something sexy and then do all this elemental magic with it and suddenly Bam! It’s a tea pot. Okay, so it’s not quite that instantaneous or mysterious. But it IS the most magical thing I can think of.

Woodfiring a beautifully communal process. The kiln is massive. I’m sure you could live in it, if you really needed to. It requires multiple people to complete the process from beginning to end, and we are all with each other from beginning to end. Not only is this process a commitment to our work, but its also a commitment to each other. We all need to create work in order to fill the kiln. We all support the process in whatever way we can; cutting and hauling wood, cooking meals, kiln-washing shelves, etc. We each take shifts during the multi-day, round-the-clock firing process. No one person could do it alone. After the exhausting work of making and firing, we leave the kiln to cool; a gestational period of sorts before the birth of our collective love and labors. The day we get to unload is full of excitement and emotion. There is joy and awe at what we’ve just accomplished, a sense of relief knowing that we can sleep in our own beds again soon, and grief at the fact that it’s over and we must all go back to the various places from which we came.