FORNO

With leftover bricks from the wood kiln construction Cody and I built a Forno--an Italian inspired wood oven for making pizza, stromboli, focacciao and griglia mista. The front is faced with handmade earthenware tiles sporting maiolica painting and glaze decals from Gubbio donated by my friend R.G. Brown. The chimney is thrown and altered earthenware featuring the Re del Forno with a cigar that smokes when the chimney is going.

According to my art history professor friend Tom Pitts the term Fornication comes from the Latin root word Forno. The word Fornix means arch and the bread ovens then were constructed of barrel vaulted arches. Fornicato means done near the archway--as the ladies of the evening in ancient Rome entertained their gentlemen callers near the bakery district and on the cold winter evenings would ply their trade close to the Forno to stay warm.

Nonetheless, the Forno is up and going and hopefully we will be entertaining more genteel ladies while cooking various dishes in the new wood oven.

Pots for Second Firing

Here is a group of bisqueware pots getting ready to be glazed for the second firing of the wood kiln. There are a variety of shapes and sizes -- thrown and hand built that will fit in with a few other pieces that did not get in the first firing. The earthenware piece with the carved slip will go in the very back where the space was cooler than in the rest of the kiln. I will try the approach of placing a lower temperature clay in the back so that I can work with the nature of the kiln instead of having it work against my prejudices of how this kiln should fire. We shall see!

POTS FROM THE FIRST FIRING

I am posting some pieces from the first firing that show the effect of ash and a little soda on the glazed pots. There is a mixture of stoneware, white stoneware and porcelain in this firing so the surfaces are mixed in terms of how the glazes are being influenced by the color of clay under them. Some have more ash intertwined with the glaze and these pieces were closer to the firebox. I was pleased and surprised by the surface effects that I attained in this first firing.

First Firing Done

The first firing is done and the results were mixed. The front 1/3 of the kiln came out great, the middle third was OK but somewhat cool and the back never got to the temperature I wanted it to achieve. The firing took 15 hours which includes a 4 hour preheat with gas to cure the arch keystone and the back wall top inset. I learned that with this kiln less wood per stoke is better than more as it is easy to choke it up with too much wood. Also, the front air intake required less air than I anticipated. There are 4 air intake ports on the bottom front and I ended up using the two middle ones. My biggest problem was even distribution of heat which is not uncommon for a wood kiln but I think I crammed it too full and did not allow enough room for heat flow front to back. It was fairly even in terms of heat from top to bottom in the front and middle of the chamber. I used a little salt at the end and it combined with the ash deposits on the clay nicely.

The next firing will be stacked a bit looser and with less little stuff crammed everywhere. Also, there were some pieces of castible on the surface of the top pots so I need to work the loose bits out of the margin between the last bricks on the inside top of the arch and the cast keystone. I will post some pictures of the finished pots in my next posting.

First Firing

The morning of the first firing I looked out to the garden and look who was watching! A very large Red Tailed Hawk sitting on the gatepost to the entrance of the garden. What a magnificent animal. I am hoping that he/she is a good omen for the upcoming firing.

LOADED

The kiln is loaded and the door is stacked. Next is the first firing. It didn't hold all of the pots I made for the maiden voyage but, honestly, it holds more pieces than I imagined it would. I will candle this first firing with propane for about 6 hours until I am sure the castable is cured. It has been sitting under a metal roof for almost an entire South Carolina summer so it is as dry as it's going to get but I will fire it slowly the very first firing. Fingers Crossed

LOADING THE KILN

Everything is made, bisque fired, glazed and now it is time to load the kiln. Transporting the pots down the hill from the studio to the kiln was a bit of a task and there were a few casualties along the way, but all is here now and ready to go into the kiln chamber. I am uncertain as to how many pieces this new kiln will hold, so I made more than I thought would fit in the interior, but we shall see. The actual placing of the pieces in the kiln begins tomorrow.