Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Firing
Below are some images of the firing. I actually did two firings, due to the fact that my 35mm camera broke at the beginning of the first firing. I fixed the camera and refired the kiln the following evening. The firings happened on September 11 and 12 and each lasted about 8 hours.
Friday, November 20, 2009
How To Build An Inside-out Kiln - Part 2
Sure, it's easy enough to pile a bunch of bricks on top of each other and say that they're an inside out kiln. But what actually makes it inside out?
I had a lot of time to think about how I was going to build this kiln as I hauled all 500 bricks from Paul's wharf to the kiln site 3km over land. In the end I decided to go with a double-bourry box kiln. It is the kind that I used during my NSCAD days and the kind that I am most familiar with. You can see an archetypal double-bourry box kiln here.
It is a very straightforward design. There is a large ware chamber in the middle with one firebox on each side. The fireboxes have two sections - a combustion chamber on top where fuel (wood) is burned, and an ash pit below that doubles as a flame channel. This is a very simple diagram of a double bourry-box kiln:
Note the lovely pot in the ware chamber, the fires in the combustion chambers and the ashes in the ash pits. To turn this kiln inside out I decided to dissect the design down the middle so that essentially I would end up with two halves. Then I transposed the two halves so that the fireboxes were overlapping:
The final step was to discard the unnecessary or physically unstable parts, most notably the arch/roof:
In this configuration the ware chamber is relocated to an undefined region to the left and right of the (now single) firebox. In principle I could say that virtually anything is within this new ware chamber - even the whole island. Compare the diagram to how the kiln actually looked when it was finished:
I had a lot of time to think about how I was going to build this kiln as I hauled all 500 bricks from Paul's wharf to the kiln site 3km over land. In the end I decided to go with a double-bourry box kiln. It is the kind that I used during my NSCAD days and the kind that I am most familiar with. You can see an archetypal double-bourry box kiln here.
It is a very straightforward design. There is a large ware chamber in the middle with one firebox on each side. The fireboxes have two sections - a combustion chamber on top where fuel (wood) is burned, and an ash pit below that doubles as a flame channel. This is a very simple diagram of a double bourry-box kiln:
Note the lovely pot in the ware chamber, the fires in the combustion chambers and the ashes in the ash pits. To turn this kiln inside out I decided to dissect the design down the middle so that essentially I would end up with two halves. Then I transposed the two halves so that the fireboxes were overlapping:
The final step was to discard the unnecessary or physically unstable parts, most notably the arch/roof:
In this configuration the ware chamber is relocated to an undefined region to the left and right of the (now single) firebox. In principle I could say that virtually anything is within this new ware chamber - even the whole island. Compare the diagram to how the kiln actually looked when it was finished:
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Artist Talks - St. John's and Halifax
I will be talking about The Grey Islands twice next week - first at Eastern Edge Gallery in St. John's on Monday at 7pm, then Tuesday at NSCAD in Halifax. Please come out to see lots of pictures and hear lots of stories that haven't yet made it into the blog.
How To Live On A Desert Island
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