Wood Fired Pottery

The first piece of ceramics was created when a piece of clay fell into a fire and was transformed into a glasslike material. Later this method was used to create pottery for domestic wares, ritual tokens, and for decorative pieces. Although the oldest known pottery fragments came from the Hittite people of Asia Minor, the Japanese have created clay art for thousands of years. They are famously known for their wood fired pottery.

Wood firing is a very laborious, and time consuming job. Wood firing clay is usually done in an anagama. An anagama is a single chamber that is a tunnel shaped kiln. Or, wood firing can also be done in a noborigama. A noborigama is a multi-chamber kiln. Even if the Japanese were the most famously known for using these techniques of firing, these techniques have now been spread world wide.

As mentioned above, these wood firing techniques are time consuming and very laborious. Of course, because of those reasons most potters who use anagamas or noborigamas often fire only once a year. The potters would save up approximately a whole years' work which is about a hundred pots, then they fire them all at once. These wood firings can take up to as long as two weeks to be completed. The first step would be to start the fire; this is done with tiny pieces of wood that is set on fire and then the kiln is restocked every five minutes.

Then it is essential to wait until the kiln is hot enough. Once this is accomplished, large pieces of pottery are added at regular intervals. Then when the kiln is loaded, the fire is kept burning for twenty-four hours a day for several days until the clay is matured or in other words hardened.

Then the next step is to unload right? Wrong!! The kiln must be left for several DAYS TO COOL. This step is one of the most if not the most important step to follow because if the kiln is opened too soon the pots will crack and break. After the kiln is completely cooled, then that is the correct time to unload the kiln. If these steps seem to be incomplete then you are wrong.

The step that you might have thought to be missing would be the glazing step. Well, these pots do not have to be glazed. Because this is wood firing, the pots end up sort of glazing themselves. As the fire inside the kiln gets hotter, drafts push wood ash through the kiln where it sticks to the pots. The pots get so hot from the flames that the pots glow red; because of this the ash melts on the clay and therefore creates its own glaze. These pots are very mysterious as they come out because their patterns vary and are unpredictable.

In conclusion wood firing is a great technique to fire pottery that requires all time, effort, and patience. The results however are very beautiful, and rewarding. Also their unpredictability make the labor an exciting procedure.

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Source:

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/clay.html