Some folks think pottery just happens… make it, fire it, done. But there’s a more behind the scenes that most people don’t know about. Like the “joy” of physically scraping down all of the kiln shelves after every soda-firing to remove any glaze drips or soda build-up. Gotta keep the shelves clean & ready for the next firing.

Just got a little busy… and now realizing that I didn’t post many photos from my recent soda kiln! So here are a few more photos of the front stack before I started to unload everything. It’s always like Christmas opening the door to reveal all of the presents inside!

Gotta love when you pull the kiln door away… and it reveals a lot of “soda-shiny” & colorful pots!!!
Big sigh of relief to see beautiful pots… another successful soda firing!

I’ll take this as a good sign.
A “perfect” cone ten! Finally cool enough to start unloading… more to come!!!

After about three hours last night, I finally had my pots carefully stacked in the kiln. Trying hard to get as many pots squeezed in… while not packing it too tight. There needs to be some “space” between the pots for the soda atmosphere to work its way through to “glaze” the pots with soda build-up.

So I put the bottom shelves back in the kiln… a great place to start.
Then last night I stacked my pots into the kiln… shelf by shelf… brick by brick… pot by pot.

Last night I was greeted with an empty kiln… full of possibilities…
ready to be filled with pots for another soda firing!

Finished teaching class tonight… and happy to see that my bisque kiln was finished too!!!
You gotta love seeing those four letters!!!

Everything dried overnight as planned.
All of these pieces will need to be glazed & wadded later this week!

Also… kinda excited to get my “monster” from last session’s THROWDOWN class into the kiln. He’ll be a lot less fragile once he’s bisqued! And then I’ll just need to figure out how to add some color to him?!

Mental note to self… don’t wipe the underside of a kiln shelf with your bare hand. You never know what the person before you in the kiln may have left behind!!!

Second note… buy more band-aids!