Diving beneath the wreck

firings and feelings

Downstairs, the kiln is ticking away. It makes a little clicking noise as it rises to temperature, a few degrees at a time. The firing will take somewhere around seven hours, and then another seven or more to cool. It cools quickly, but I don’t want to risk cracking or glaze faults in opening the lid too soon, so I’ve been training myself to wait until it’s cold, or trying—I won’t open it until it drops below 200°F. The cups are all porcelain, fragile and fussy, and need time and space—to expand while fired, and settle back into themselves afterwards, like nesting birds. It’s always a risk: I slow fire because I don’t want anything to explode, but also because I single fire everything. Most potters fire twice—once for the bisque fire (or, if you’re a Brit, or possibly Appalachian, you might say “biscuit fire,” which always cracks me up), and another for the glaze. I just make the cup, trim it, let it dry out, glaze, and fire, hope for the best. It’s a kind of trust, now, with this porcelain. I’ve been using it for about a year, and it’s still difficult. Too sticky—if I wire a cup off the wheel, it sticks. I can’t use too much water, or it will turn into ketchup. I have to dry the pieces slowly, compress the base, or I get S-cracks. I can’t use water to secure a flipped over cup to the wheelhead if I’m trimming; any water will work quickly to dissolve the rim and work its way down the body of the pot. So I adapt: I use a bat system, with little squares of plastic that lift off so I don’t have to touch the pot when it’s wet. I only trim when they’re dry, though sometimes it’s too dry, or too wet, or some other problem. When trimming, I only affix the waste clay to the wheelhead with dry-ish pieces; too wet and it’ll stick to the sides of the cup. Sometimes there are cracked rims, too, that just show up after firing, and everything feels impossible. That happened recently, again. Sometimes I wonder why I am making these weirdo pots.

This is more or less what they look like. The light is tricky. I will list a bunch on my website in the next couple of weeks.

I continue to apply for a wide variety of jobs. Some teaching, some other things. Some of the jobs are local and others are not. I have been making progress on the book, though I don’t want to talk about it. I have to turn it in, but I don’t feel ready, not now. I am trying to get more ready, but it still feels far away, removed from what I need or where I’m going. I may need to dive a little underground, try to access the strangest parts of myself, as I approach the deadline. Otherwise, I may need more time, still, which I can’t afford. Perhaps understandably, we are not going anywhere for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah/Christmas/New Year’s. It’s just me and these pots and this book.

And Ori, of course. And Millie, our dingus.

hi r u up it’s me millie

How do you get into the spaces you need to go? To access what feels inaccessible?