I may have a mild obsession with taking hot kiln pictures.

Molten kiln wall.

I think this is the best bending-cones picture I’ve gotten: c.8 down, c.9 soft.

I climbed into the soda kiln with my camera a couple of months ago and want to share some of the amazing surfaces in there. This kiln is two or three years old and is fired something between fifty and seventy times a year… that’s a lot of wear.

Hello, my pretty. This is one of the burners. Boo! These are more like seven years old, from what I’ve been told.

Closeup of the flue entrance… love the layering of soda with the floating glaze. I’d like to use this surface for something.

Entrance to the chimney again… but looking up. Look at all that soda built up on the refractory brick. I’d like to use this texture on a big sculptural piece.

Sitting on the floor and looking toward the front. The opening is one of the soda ports. When we add the soda, we flip the angle iron toward the outside wall (at the left).  Lots of soda lands on the target brick, bottom center, and builds up in the area behind it.

The range of color the wall picks up is beautiful. The depth of the colors would translate well to an oil painting. Maybe when the kiln gets rebuilt I can have this section of the wall. The interior wythe is hard brick, to better resist wear, so even this small part would be quite hefty. It would still be worth it.

Here’s another super crusty part, above the soda port. I like the blue and green color and the rippled texture. Reminds me of Gail Nichols’ work a bit. It has more green than over by the flue - a little more iron? - and is a bit less crusty. Great surface. I love it.

It went well! The difference between a “dirty” and regular firing: super heavy reduction, extra carbon trapping (going for grey to charcoal porcelain), and extra soda. It’s excellent. I had a lot of work - nearly half the kiln - so this is truly the highlights reel. (And I haven’t even shown you the pods.)

The surfaces of this vessel are particularly fantastic. Went in with an unglazed exterior (and plenty of copper glaze on the inside), came out like this. Purple to yellowish, matte to glossy. Grolleg porcelain. Amazing, no?

The bathtubs turned out as hilariously as I thought they would. They’re soap dishes.

Set of houses. Iron stoneware washed with chromium oxide, and came out wonderfully. Must do that again.

This little dish got a big drip of silicone carbide in it, which made a lovely accent.

The newer short cup form. The surfaces came out so well. The heavy reduction really pulls the iron through.