A weekend with a wood kiln
A potter two valleys over fires a small anagama twice a year and lets a few people bring work if they help stoke. I brought eleven pots and came back with nine, two of them welded to the shelf by ash glaze.
Wood firing is the opposite of the controller in the community kiln. For thirty hours someone is feeding the firebox every few minutes, reading the colour of the flame, listening to the draught and deciding when to side stoke. The ash that flies through the chamber settles on the pots and melts into glaze wherever the flame touched.
What came back
The pots on the front shelf, closest to the fire, have glossy green runs down one side and a toasty orange flash on the other. The ones further back are almost bare, just warm and slightly speckled. You can read exactly where each pot sat and which way the flame turned.
It was exhausting, and I'm already wedging clay for the autumn firing.