Woodfiring

 

 Our school has amazing woodfiring kiln in the yard build by the students years ago. In  the start of the first study year we already got a small taste of the possibilities when firing with wood, salt and athmospheric glazes. I took some late night shift for warming the kiln and was guite enthusiastic to learn all the stages and macig tricks even the main responsibility of the firing was on the second year class.

Here some of the very first pieces of the year that got to the honor to be in the wood owen

 Temmoku glazes

 A white glaze that didn't melt well.

With these soapholders I tested what will happen to the engobe without any glazing exept the ash that naturally comes from the fireing.

On the plates there is two different oxblood glaces that didn't turn out to be so bloody.

A bowl with celadon glaze that took from the owen some red spots that was not suppose to happen.

Lidded boxes

 

The assignment: Make three boxes with slab building technique that are not alike but that will make somehow a set. Also it's important to think for what they will be used for.

I made these from local low-fire red clay that I added grog to make it more strong for handbuilding and painted them with engobes. I've had in my mind long time to make "architypes" of buildings that I saw in Israel, so this was the perfect spot to try it out. Using slabs ment for me to be very patient to wait for the exact right time for each different shape and structure to build. This was a  good exercise to understand that very simple shapes can actually be very demanding. Also I wanted to apply the architectural details to the pieces the way that they would become functional. It took alot of mental dicipline (that dont come naturally for me) to keep my self focused on the task but it was worth all the suffering in the end -no cracks or disturbing bending, lids sitting perfectly and the wared out decoration was as I wanted it. I chose to not glaze the pieces to have beautiful matte surfaces, exept one have clear glaze on the inside for practical reasons.

Arabic-style garlic holder with window holes to keed the box well aired

Concreate building with legs to keep onions. There is also one airhole on the bottom, that doesn't show in the pics. The lid dont have a knob but "walls" that you can get a grip from. It also could be a serving dish on it's own.

The fancy old house of Tel Aviv is a cookie jar with glazed insides for keeping the box easier to keep clean.