Ted Ernst Pottery

A large crew of people fired Jay Widmer’s Digger Mountain Anagama from April 2^nd through 5^th, 2009.  This was an interesting firing in that most of the wood available for this firing was wet and unseasoned.  Wet wood and too slow of a temperature gain early on resulted in a rather cool firing.  We only dropped cone 11 in the front of the kiln and cone 9 in the back.  Reduction seemed to be a little heavy in this firing also … probably a result of the wet wood.  At first when we unloaded the kiln I was disappointed in the lack of melted ash on the pots.  However, after I got the pots home and cleaned up I really started to like and appreciate the softer surfaces that came from the back half of the kiln.  The front of the kiln had good ash build up and many of the surfaces sported platelets on their surfaces. 

 

Here are some photos of the firing.

Pots queued up to be loaded into the kiln.

 

 

 

 

 

The start of the firing before the door was set into place.

 

Just after the door was set in place.  The two pots

on the step in front of the fire box are my pieces and

were some of my favorite pots to come out of the firing.

 

 

 

 

Peter and Nick Widmer and Lynda Farmer doing the side-stoking. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jay stoking the kiln after Lynda Farmer and Nick Widmer finished the side-stoking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Front rank of shelves.

 

 

Filed under: Firings |