Reduction Cooled Wood Fired Ceramics

As with most things pottery the exception is if you are an experienced potter understand the in and outs and are ready for advanced techniques such as using saggers.

Reduction cooled wood fired ceramics. Reduction firing cannot be done safely in an electric kiln. Greetings kiln masters. In traditional ceramics reduction firing requires a specially designed fuel fired kiln that restricts the flow of incoming air so there is enough to burn the fuel and no more in some cases it is restricted so that is actually less than enough to introduce carbon into the atmosphere. Reduction cooling when overdone can create some less than desirable surfaces as seen below from the idyllwild ceramic arts wood fire kiln.

This bottle was fired in my train style wood kiln built in 2017 with the assistance of ted neal my good friend and kiln builder extraordinaire who is a professor of ceramics at ball state university. Johnathan cross vessel from the firebox kiln akagama. A reception is planned for saturday july 7th beginning at 6 00 pm. I am about to fire a small 70 cu ft setting anagama inspired tube kiln.

In 1997 i attended a three week wood firing workshop at utah state university with john neely and australian potter owen rye. I loved the ash covered reduction cooled pots from the train kiln and decided that was what i wanted to build. Getting a good reduction firing is difficult. Are contemporary wood firing potters those same people wandering around.

Shooting for cone 11 1. Wood fired stoneware 16 x 5 x 5 reduction cooled. Reduction cooling produces some amazing surfaces in wood fired ceramics as seen in the following pieces by jonathan cross and mitch iberg. Nc and showcases wood fired utilitarian ceramics.

I have been having better success with raku. Neely had designed the kiln after a japanese model. I tried doing cone ten reduction glazes in a gas kiln and that became to difficult to get a good reduction. Reduction firing should only be done in a fuel fired kiln.

Wheel thrown altered and wood fired vessel made with wild clay native to southern alabama wood fired in the east creek anagama for 7 days and reduction cooled no applied glaze decorated by natural ash atmosphere and flame path during the firing process. I have been doing a lot of raku and have had to learn alot about reduction. The ceramic scholar philip rawson gave the keynote address at the iowa wood firing conference in 1991 and compared contemporary wood firing to a 19th century cult in which artists who were appalled by social and cultural ostentation wandered around pulling grotesque faces in mockery of the pretension around them. This condition is accomplished in gas kilns by increasing.

Mitch iberg clay tests from the firebox kiln akagama. Reduction firing is a science in it self.