Fat Lady/Piano Scenario

My pots from the first wood-fire


A couple of Sydney's cups with nice flashing and ash runs


What we saw when we unbricked the door



After another exhausting day's critique at Tel Hai- 16 students,7 hours- I helped Sydney unload the wood kiln; as often happens when you think your firing was not so successful,the pots told a different story. It looks like we reached cone 7 in quite a few parts of the kiln [not the cone 9 we were aiming for,a difference of 40 degrees,but still a lot closer than we thought],with flashing from the ash on almost everything. Some glazes didn't "open",but will probably respond to refiring in the next gas firings. We have to fix two or three things on the kiln,but feel much better about what we achieved. Sydney [normally the more impetuous of the two of us] is inclined to try another firing to cone 9 with glazes,but I think that next time we should go for cone 10 and chuck in some salt.