“YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE THREAT OF FAILURE ALL THE TIME!”
I am going to talk about glazing the pots at a later stage as there is much to talk about regarding mixing and applying glazes. Suffice it to say that glazes were a key ingredient to the individuality, invention and exploration that epitomises the studio pottery at Greendene.
It came to the day of the firing in the big brick kiln out the back behind the studio. A few days before we had collected fire wood and stacked it up by the kiln. There was always plenty of logs due to the need to cut back the woodland areas that were threatening to invade the house and garden. I had hacked down and sawn Ash, Beech and Elderberry that had that strange musty earth scent. This was part of my continuing gardening duties.
The kiln had been stacked and the door bricked up with one brick lose to enable viewing inside the kiln to check the temperature.
We started with a rather modest little fire in the fire box and gradually built it up. After several hours the pile of logs had slowly gone down and the temperature built up to a warm satisfying glow.
Once a certain temperature was reached, judgements were made by discussion between Mike and Denis, deciding on when the blower engine should be started. It was an old petrol fuelled engine and had to be cranked up to get started. Michael did the pulling and the engine huffed and puffed spluttered and went out. He tried again and once again the engine started into life and then died. Worried faces: again he pulled on the rope and finally with grunt and a shiver the thing began to fire.
Behind the kiln was a couple of barrels up on a make shift sort of shelf and these were the oil barrels that I hadn’t really noticed before. We trekked over to the drive way and filled petrol cans full from the oil tank and barrowed them back to the kiln. We filled the barrels and jumped down to activate the blower.
Now came the crazily exciting moment as Michael turned the tap and the oil dripped down and was shot into the fire box by the blower. Woh! I jumped back in shock as the fire box roared and exploded into life red hot and angry. I stood mesmirised wondering if the delicate pots that were trapped inside would survive this baptism of fire? What expectation and anticipation is generated and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
To be continued:
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