Studio Update: Week 15

This was the week of the woodfire! Most of my studio work was put on hold this week during the firing. On Monday we loaded up the kiln, Tuesday we bricked up the door and slipped it. Wednesday we started the firing around noon. My first shift was from noon to four and then I went home and popped some melatonin for a quick little nap. Then I had a shift from midnight to eight am. ( side note your girl goes to bed at about 10:30 consistently so this was interesting! lol) I showed up with a crockpot full of black bean soup, obviously. Then I was there from four to about midnight. We had initially built a wall into the kiln so that we wouldn't have to worry about filling the entire thing but also to help make it a quicker firing. This was very helpful and we were all exhausted by the time we cut it off. I think a longer firing would definitely require a larger group of people manning the kiln. This was actually my first woodfiring. KSU didn't have it's own wood kiln and every chance we almost had never worked out. As exhausting as it was I really had a lot of fun. I love all the people in this studio and it was really cool to spend so much time with them all. It was about 20 to 30 degrees all week so we were huddled up by the kiln and the little firepit Brian brought. So many marshmallows were eaten. Today we unloaded the kiln and it looks like it was a really great firing! I didn't get the chance to take any pictures of the finished pieces but I will do an update shortly:)

Image1- 3: The kiln is loaded, bricked up and slipped

Image 4: Max and Molly adding kindling to get some good coals started

Image 5: Weenie roast

Image 6: GH pulled a wood out of the wood pile with a giant wasp nest on it.. luckily it was 20 degrees out and no one seemed to be home in there

Image 7: Me and Mandi have matching comfy scarves!

Image 8: sometime around 4am

Image 9: The kiln right after being stoked

Image 10: The kiln pad is pretty at night

Image 11: Me sleep deprived and losing my grip on reality (slightly)

Image 12: group pic!

Video 1: Me stoking the Kiln. It is close to cone 10 at this point: I think it was at about 2200 degrees