Amazing Glaze Recipes and Combinations by Gabriel Kline

Author:Gabriel Kline
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quarry Books
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Bricks from the Old Salt Kiln repurposed in the kiln yard herb garden

The Odyssey Salt Kiln is one such kiln. The Old Salt Kiln, designed by a former Odyssey resident, stood for nearly a decade and saw more than 135 firings. Slowly the buildup of salt and soda on the interior walls of the kiln created a tension that caused the arch of the kiln to begin to sag, and for safety reasons it had to be dismantled. This is the natural life of a salt kiln, eventually falling in on itself. As a beloved but temperamental kiln, the bricks from the Old Salt Kiln now create the wall of our studio flower and herb garden (see photo above).

We began plans to rebuild immediately. We commissioned a new kiln design from master kiln builder Shane Mickey, who also advised us on the project. Over the course of the spring of 2019, we first raised the funds to buy the raw materials, including new burners. Then, on a series of successive Sundays, a volunteer crew of eight potters and resident artists poured the concrete slab, bricked the chimney and walls, installed new irons, and rebuilt a beautiful new arch. Building a kiln is an empowering experience and an excellent opportunity if you get the chance. You’ll get a deeper insight into the physics of firing, not to mention the connective human experience of building an arch. The first time you do it you feel as if your brain has expanded, as you participate in part of the evolution of our species and culture.

The kiln can take as few as several hours to load, or as much as three days in the case of the largest kilns! The door must be bricked up every time, and the firing involves the spraying of a soda ash solution directly into the hot kiln. Salt (and soda) firing is a dynamic process that must be treated with an eye on safety. You are working with a live flame, adding materials to that kiln that are both vaporizing and corrosive. The result from all this work, however, is an effect that cannot be achieved otherwise: that gorgeous orange peel texture on the raw clay (see photo at right). I have also always loved salt kiln glazed work, when the vaporized salt or soda has landed on the molten glaze in an atmospheric chemical interaction that changes the look of the glaze by giving it more depth.

Similarly, wood-fired pots have a certain mystical quality to them, having spent days in the path of an active flame, with wood ash traveling though the atmosphere of the kiln and landing on the surface of the pots to color them. Wood ash contains a high percentage of calcium oxide and also potassium oxide and trace elements of iron, manganese, zinc and copper oxides, all capable of affecting color and flux on the surface of your work. Pots placed unglazed in the wood kiln emerge colored like tobacco, bourbon, leather, or stone.

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