Why we do it
Lately I have been having a lot of firing nightmares. Sometimes my kiln fires too hot in some spots and sometimes too cool. At least when it is too cool, I can re-fire some pieces even though I don’t like to because it tends to make the clay weak. I am constantly reassessing what I potentially did wrong because sometimes it is something that I indeed am responsible for.
The kiln that I have was custom built on specks that my husband who is an electrical technologist. Turns out, 6 years later, it was not a great design for an oval kiln. The first piece used to be square. Maybe I can come up with a new shape for this or maybe one already exists?
Sometimes I wish I worked in another media where what you see is what you get. Sure you can screw that stuff up too but with clay you are relying on heat to give you great results and for the most part that is what happens.
These days, I am getting ready for the upcoming holiday season because anyone who works in clay knows that you need to plan way ahead. I know that this situation with my hot and cool kiln must be resolved because I cannot stand to lose any more work. It is challenging to face the loss of another load of work.
When I arrive at a crossroad such as this with clay, I question why I and many others do work with clay and the answer is because we love it. When I am away from it, I want to be near it. I have been enraptured with it for a long time now and I suspect even after this last bad firing that we are going to kiss and make up once again.
