we wood fired these totem poles to r7 (1240) which was basically a 13 hour firing without glazes or any inputs. although we planed the entire firing on the basis of three other 13 hour, soda and glaze wood-firing; with 2 major reductions, we still obtained no wood-firing characteristics on our work. there were no ash deposits either although we had placed some ash pockets on the bag walls and some between the pieces themselves.
since we had placed no peep hole in the back wall of the kiln, we achieved our temperature quite efficiently and steadily as there was no heat loss from the back, brick wall at all.
the reason we used no inputs and we only went up to r7 was that the clay we used gave us very diverse results in 5 different firings (gas and wood fire). my clay body was either perfectly fine or it was cracking up or totally melting in different firings that went to the same temperature. i also tried placing them in the same positions on the same shelves in an attempt to try to ascertain possible reasons for the diverse results. others had similar issues, however even at r7 another colleague's totems warped although her clay tests were perfect through out.
In the end, my totems preformed a through and through cracking performance and they still remained un-vitrified.
However the natural cracks are beautiful. They make me think of how naturally the fire made my work speak of my thoughts and of my concept. it is amazing to equate the cracks- a sign of weakness, to all the corruption and lies of our government and how they have weakened our county's internal structure. And the fact that all my pieces resisted any fire flashes, makes me think, no matter how hard one may try to cloak deception, it cannot go unnoticed. Invite your mail contacts to join your friends list with Windows Live Spaces. It's easy! Try it!
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