Get your hot pots! Katie Teesdale and Levi Yankosky recently fired up Big Red, our cone10 reduction gas kiln! Big Red took the summer off to rest and relax after 20+ years of putting out the amazing pots from Tom Wirt and Betsy Price that you know and love.  But just this last week we fired her back up again for a test drive with Katie and Levi’s pots.

Here are some fun photos from the firing and unloading (aka Potter’s Christmas).

There will be more kiln openings in the coming weeks, stay tuned to our Facebook and Instagram pages to find out dates and times. And come on out to The Gallery to get your hands on some of these brand new pieces!

Katie is holding the cone pack, all of the cones fell over so that means we reached cone 10.

To learn more about reduction firing we turn to Ceramics Arts Daily, who writes “The science of what happens in a reduction kiln and the resulting color palette might not be exactly what you think it is….Reduction is the process of electrons being donated to a metal/element/surface through some set of reactions, while another component in the same set of reactions is oxidized (electrons lost). This is your defined set of oxidation and reduction parameters. In a gas kiln, albeit natural gas or propane, you are using some set of hydrocarbons and oxygen.” Read the full, fascinating article here.

Every potter holds their breath for a moment when they first open up the kiln. Did it work? Are all the pots stuck to the shelves? Did my reds burn out?

Here’s Levi looking at one of his pots, it turned out beautifully!

PS: Click here to see a firing chart by color (we have one on the wall by the kilns).