Anagama Firing at EKU
The firing shown below took place at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky over the millennium New Year's Eve, December 30, 1999 to January 1, 2000. The kiln was built by Prof. Joseph Molinaro and his students and is fired three or four times per year.
Loading the kiln: about 300-400 pots and many truckloads of wood are needed. The kiln is fired only with wood, which comes as scrap from a nearby sawmill. The pottery is loaded through the kiln mouth, with teams of people handing pottery to the person loading inside the kiln.
All pictures ©1999-2000 Richard and Elizabeth Burkett - permission needed for any use.
Click on any thumbnail picture below to see a larger version.
Loading is an all-day affair, often going well into the evening. A bonfire was built to both keep the loaders warm and to dry the kiln wash on the shelves. Wadding (small balls of a fireclay and sawdust mixture visible in a pile in the picture above) is placed on the foot of all pots to keep them from sticking to each other or the kiln shelves. When the kiln is filled with pottery the door opening is bricked up and a small fire started.
The firing begins overnight with the small fire, gradually building to a raging blaze the next day. Within about 24 hours the temperature inside the kiln reaches close to 2350° F (1300° C). Firing proceeds night and day. Close cooperation is needed between all the potters who are helping with the firing.
The kiln is held at close to its peak temperature for about 2 days to let the wood ash (which is blowing through the kiln with the flames) accumulate on the pottery and build up glaze. Teams of four people work each six-hour shift, with two people tending to the stoking, and two more keeping plenty of wood stacked close to the kiln for the stokers.
Pyrometric cones are checked through openings in the side of the kiln. One cone (Orton cone 12) is left standing in the picture above on the right. A digital pyrometer also aids the stokers in maintaining a constant temperature in the kiln.
The heat is intense in stoking, so dark glasses help to keep one's eyes from drying out, even at night.
A few views inside the kiln, taken through the stoke holes:
For New Year's Eve everyone brought food: sushi, cookies, salads, things to grill, and we made pizzas on the spot, cooking them in a brick oven we built above the kiln.
On New Year's Day the stoking intensified to get a final peak temperature of about cone 12 at the very end of the firing. This helps to assure that all of the wood ash which has stuck to the pottery has melted into a glaze.
The kiln was stoked in both of the upper openings in the door, leaving the bottom openings free for air to flow up through the wood as it burned. Longer pieces of wood are slowly pushed into the kiln as they burn off.
Periodically coals which have built up in the firebox must be pulled out and shoveled away. Below left is the flame in the chimney at the damper - wood burns with a long flame that moves through the entire length of the kiln and out the top of the chimney at times.
The last firing team poses for a picture just before the firing is ended and the kiln closed to cool for four to five days. When the kiln was unbricked there were still hot coals in the firebox. These were shoveled out and the kiln allowed to cool just a bit more, then the unloading began. The wood ash tends to glaze the pottery to the shelves in the front of the kiln where ash accumulations are greatest, even with kiln wadding under the pottery to keep it from sticking.
A happy Joe Molinaro helps with the last of the unloading. Some of the ware is shown below. The large amount of ash glaze is evident on the pottery, as most of the pieces below have no other glaze on their exterior surfaces. Wadding will have to be ground off the bottoms of many of the pieces.
