[Clayart] books etc/long

[vincepitelka at gmail.com]

A post from Primalmommy/Kelly Savino is always a big breath of fresh air!  Kelly, you are one of the really good people in this strange world. 
- Vince

Vince Pitelka
Potter, Writer, Teacher
Chapel Hill, NC
vpitelka at dtccom.net
www.vincepitelka.com 
https://chathamartistsguild.org/ 

-----Original Message-----
From: Clayart <clayart-bounces at lists.clayartworld.com> On Behalf Of Kelly Savino
Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2023 6:17 PM
To: clayart at lists.clayartworld.com
Subject: Re: [Clayart] books etc/long

On Thu, 23 Feb, 2023 at 1:56 PM, mel jacobson <melpots at mail.com> wrote:


When I started working on the kiln book, Tony Clennell said to me...."I think you may be too late to write a kiln book, in a couple of years no one will be firing with gas or wood. It will be all electric."  And, of course he was correct.  Building a home gas kiln is out of fashion. And, only the young and hardy will even think "wood".


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Mel, your friend Diana Pancioli taught me how to build a gas kiln. We fired her little salt and soda cats with propane but mine at the lake is hooked up to natural gas. It's just a cubic yard inside, but I built it myself (kids and hubby helped hand me bricks) and it's braced with angle iron and threaded rods. Dug out squares of sod like cutting out brownies, rented a baby cement mixer for the foundation. Stacked bricks on the wooden arch while my grandma sat in the shade with lemonade and critiqued. 


I fire it by myself - (a treat, after group firings w fellow grad students). So I can break all the rules and if I ruin the pots they are mine to ruin. 


The two biggest problems I have are potters wasps making nests in the burner ports and chipmunks filling the thing with acorns in the off season. I once left it for a week between firing and unloading and found one of my teapots full of acorns. 


And once I used outdated oat bran to mix into my wadding, came back a day later to brick up the front and discovered all my pots tipped, the wads nibbled to bits and field mouse and chipmunk poop everywhere. 


I also have to carefully evict tree frogs from the burner ports. 


But I fire with owls hooting at night and sandhill cranes calling in early morning.. It's all good. 


Hi to the old gang, from Kelly in Ohio (formerly known as primalmommy)
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