Kilns That Build Community

Jasmine Oakley received the invitation in 2017: Come to California and help build a wood-fired kiln. For Oakley, then a sophomore at Eckerd College in Florida, traveling across the country to rural Mendocino County to lay bricks with strangers was a no-brainer. She had just built and fired a wood kiln at Eckerd for the first time under the guidance of ceramists Nick Schwartz and Brian Ransom, and was instantly hooked by the multi- day process. Schwartz and his wife, artist Jessica Thompson, were planning on doing it all over again that summer at the educational residency program they were hosting.

“Off the bat, they were doing a wood-firing—all these people I didn’t know, from many different backgrounds, from North Carolina, Japan, India,” Oakley recalls. “I was only 19, and I’m learning tips from people twice my age.” The group built another kiln, and the next year, Schwartz and Thompson invited Oakley back. She spent another idyllic summer by the fire, sharing meals with other artists, picking fruit, and cooling off by the river.

“Those two summers changed my whole life,” she says. “Before firing with Nick, I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. When we’re wood-firing, we have our purpose. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you do. All of that goes away, and you need to watch this fire.”

Around the Kiln, Around the Clock

The hard work of hardening clay begins long before a flame is lit. Firewood prep happens weeks, sometimes months, ahead, involving wood collection, then splitting pieces into manageable sizes. Next comes loading, a strategic operation that can take as long as two to four days and involve more than a thousand clay works. Ceramics nestle side by side, crammed onto shelves, every placement determining their final aesthetics. “The flame is like a glacial river, splitting, merging, and flowing, and you’re trying to create obstacles for the fire to change paths and go certain ways,” says Cynthia Morelli, who owns a kiln in Homer, Alaska. “You can work to get a load that enhances the works in the best possible way.”

Generally, greater color change happens as clay is increasingly exposed to heat. Encrusted patterns form as ash accumulates on surfaces, melts, and drips. Striking effects can transpire from the flashing of flames between pieces. Though the results are impossible to predict, stokers wield some degree of influence. They make adjustments depending on conditions such as temperature fluctuations, oxygen levels, how quickly wood is consumed, even the color of smoke. During a shift, one nurses the fire as frequently as every three to five minutes, aiming to hit certain temperature goals in different areas of the kiln.

“We’re trying to read the kiln constantly,” says Samuel Johnson, a professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in central Minnesota, who built an anagama kiln on campus in 2012. “I listen constantly for the sound of combustion, for the sound of air moving through to the fire.”

When the flame is out—whether after 3 days or 10—the crew can recharge as the kiln cools. After about a week, the work recommences as they unload the goods, like archaeologists excavating treasures in an ancient, dusty chamber. This, too, must be done carefully to avoid breakage. (Although wadding, a refractory clay material, is placed around every piece during loading to prevent works from sticking, bonding still occurs. Separation may be achieved by sanding or grinding the pottery.) Finally, the crew cleans the kiln and polishes their creations.

The process is exhausting and at times brutal. To many wood-firers, it is also sacred, a kind of ritual steeped in history and tradition. Oftentimes, firings even begin with an offering to the kiln: flowers, or a splash of sake or whiskey into its mouth. “There’s a deep sense of camaraderie, but also respect for what’s going on—a kind of soberness,” Johnson says. “The firing cannot be ignored. There is a sense of, Okay, we’re in this together. And we’re going to do it in the middle of the night. We might be doing it during a blizzard. Or on 100-degree days. And if it’s hard, it doesn’t matter, because we’re going to be doing this.”

Destination Firings

The hugeness of undertaking a wood-firing limits how often they can happen. Artists cranking out pottery may follow a cycle as short as six to eight weeks, according to Schwartz, and hire stokers. But it’s also common for some to light their kilns just two or three times a year. Such wood-firings tend to be invitation-only or heard about through word of mouth (although many kiln owners also schedule firings with visiting artists that are open to anyone curious). Calimpong says he notifies friends months in advance of his interest in organizing firings at his Ferndale kiln, then works around their availability. Many attendees are regulars, including his first ceramics teacher, who has been showing up for a decade. Sometimes artists will bring friends, widening the circle of collaborators. They may have different skill levels and be guests at a kiln, but “we’re all on the same level, the same playing field,” Oakley says. “I’ve always felt comfortable at wood-fire gatherings.”

Potter Shumpei Yamaki, who fires his kiln near West Branch, Iowa, twice a year, operates with a democratic spirit. “I own a kiln, but it’s not just my kiln,” he says. “I don’t put my name first. I like to cultivate the idea of sharing. My philosophy is that a great community and a great team can produce better results because you can have a great vibe.” This shared time, he adds, ideally gives artists reason to return to his studio and develop more projects together, whether firings or an exhibition.

For young potters in particular, the experience can provide opportunities to learn from seasoned ceramists, lead to exhibitions, and increase access to other kilns. “A lot of students who are first-time firers use this experience as a jumping board. When they go to another kiln, if the person knows who I am, that kind of gives them a foot in the door,” Calimpong says. “You can create a network.”