Have Pots, Will Travel

Illinois was beautiful in its difference from Washington. I really enjoyed the insects. (Really! Especially their sounds.)

I am constantly grateful for how ceramics has enriched my life. My mind continues to whirl from my latest pottery-related adventure, which sprouted quite out of the blue and quickly grew into a full-blown harvest of excitement. At the end of August, Simon Levin invited me to come fire his new wood-fired kiln (affectionately dubbed the Thunder Train) in Pawnee, Illinois. I had barely 3 weeks to accumulate, make and ship nearly 8 cubic feet of work.  Luckily, I had a small stash of work that hadn't made it into the June wood-firing in Ellensburg, and then I coiled my heart out day and night to make certain I could meet my volume goal.  I sent two big boxes with 30 pounds of work in each to meet me in Pawnee, and purchased some hard-sided luggage to take the rest with me on the plane.  Fortunately, there was only one small casualty in the post, and everything survived the airplane, even after a TSA inspection (they were kind enough to tape my bubble-wrapped packages back together--thank you TSA!).

We were a small crew at Mill Creek Pottery South, besides myself and Simon, I reunited with my friends Amy Song & Harry Levenstein for this firing, and became acquainted with Simon's newest apprentice, Meng-Che of Taiwan, and Molly Morning-Glory of North Carolina.

It was a change to fire with such a small crew--I actually spent a couple of hours on shift alone in the wee hours of the morning (with a friendly cricket by my side). My love of wood-firing has stemmed quite a bit from the social aspect, but I now see the value in being alone with the kiln, and giving people their space for the experience, too.  In fact, I had quite a bit of quiet time during this adventure, which felt very strange to me. I'm always on the go, so I got a bit twitchy during the down time--which lead me to master the machete for splitting side-stoke wood. But I also realized that my inability to be still was in itself a problem, so I made the effort to use  that peaceful time to ponder. By the trip's end, I felt like I'd hit the "reset" button and had a new energy to get back into my regular life with a better plan for balancing all aspects of what's important to me--including down time.

It wasn't all deep thoughts and deeper conversation (although there was plenty of that), we ate well, we laughed, we danced, we fortified friendships, we learned.  Every wood-firing teaches me something new about the process, and about myself. (Who knew I'd love to wield a machete?)  

The flames appeared to drip through the bricks as we shut down the kiln and headed into the down-firing process.

The graceful down-firing process:

Unloading day was exciting, and thoughtful. After each stack came down, we paused to clean the posts and shelves in preparation for the next firing. 

I'm extremely thankful to Simon Levin and his family for their gracious hospitality, and the hard work and enthusiasm of our merry firing crew! I will treasure this experience always.

Thank you so much for this exciting experience, Simon Levin!

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Amy Song and I spent one of the kiln-cooling days in Chicago, and visited the amazing Shedd Aquarium.  I'm so appreciative of Amy's generous spirit, as both host and tour-guide extraordinaire, and greatly admire her enthusiasm and work-ethic. (She managed to juggle all this, along with her kids' baseball and softball practice, music lessons and taking all three cats to the vet at once!) Amy is in the process of establishing her own wood-firing facility, River Song Pottery, in Plano, Illinois. Some unexpected challenges have arisen, so she's fired up an Indiegogo crowd-sourcing campaign to help meet costs. She'll reward your contribution with a gorgeous piece of handmade pottery fired in the inaugural firing of her train kiln. Please consider donating: ​https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/river-song-pottery#/

I'll add more pictures of my work from Simon Levin's Thunder Train kiln to my wood-firing portfolio page soon.