Hi! This is my first time selling work through my website, thanks for being here! All of the pieces below were fired in a wood kiln within the past couple of months, either at Zach Sierke's in Fairhope, AL or at Cindy & Alex Williams' in Husser, LA.
If you don't know much about wood firing - it is a magical process and very different than firing in a typical electric or gas kiln. Wood firing is a practice in alchemy, physics, & chemistry AND an intense labor of love. The kilns are typically built by hand with bricks and other refractory materials, and the firing itself is fueled by, yes, wood! Each wood kiln fires a little differently, but it typically takes between 3-6 days of nonstop stoking (putting wood in) the fire, and multiple days of loading & unloading the work in and out of the kiln. It also can take weeks for the kiln to cool down enough to unload the work after being fired to above 2000 degrees fahrenheit.
A lot of the colors, textures, and surfaces you see on these are not from glaze. Rather, the qualities on the pot's surface emerge from the type of clay used, the minerals within the wood, the buildup of wood ash on the pots, the path of the flame through the kiln, and the amount of oxygen available to the fire at each moment of the firing. Every single piece is a snapshot of the story of the atmosphere of the kiln, the history of the clay and wood used, the maker who formed the pot, and the community that came together to stoke the fire. Because it really does take a team for this type of ceramic practice.
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The prices on these pieces are higher than my usual range. I strive to make all of my ceramics financially accessible because it is a total privilege to do this kind of work and I want to spread the joy of it. The pieces below are truly one of a kind and they took a lot of travel, labor, and post-firing sanding to get ready to send off into the world. For every pot here, there are a few that got totally messed up in the firing process. That's just how it is. But it's worth it because every square millimeter of a woodfired pot holds an entire galaxy within it.
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