It's been a week since I got back from my adventure firing an anagama kiln out in a forest in Norway (See my website for more info). The week has not been a nice chill settle-back-home kind of week by any means. I arrived home Tuesday afternoon, went to work Wednesday, had 5 friends arrive for a Mamma Mia themed Navy Ball on the Friday/Saturday, drove 6 hours round to go to a Christening in Somerset on Sunday.... You get the picture. Straight back into a busy life.
This week I'm flying to Prague with Hugo and friends (coinciding with my 29th birthday), the following weekend I'm camping and then the next.... Spain. So I can barely breathe for all the activity but also am so excited for it all and so grateful for good friends and the chance to travel. I do wish I could take a weekend off to process though. All this being said, I FULLY acknowledge the privilege of travel and that these are all wonderful things.
I've been trying to reflect and concisely wrap up how I feel about the wood firing experience and I'm routinely being asked by everyone "how was Norway!?" Each time my answer is getting more brief but not at all more accurate.
I say "oh my god, it was the most incredible time. I've never worked so hard in my life", cue laughing and moving on to another topic. Don't get me wrong, it IS the hardest I've ever worked in my life and it really was the most incredible time, but that barely scratches how monumental the whole time felt.
Toward the end of the trip, two of my closer friends (a Cypriot and a Finnish woman) and I sat around our little picnic table overlooking the waterfall but away from the main camp, and we asked each other "what have you learned?".
This might be the best way for me to sum up the experience. I responded that I learned I'm a lot braver than I thought I was. My anxieties before travelling were peaking pretty high, I was scared of the social demand, of the amount of knowledge I lacked, of my work being judged. I was nervous about being liked, working hard enough, about the physical pain I'd be in, about my gut (if you know, you know), about sharing sleeping quarters and generalised anxiety about the unknown. However, over the 20-something days that we were out there, sweating and swimming and making and stoking, I made better friends than I'd ever have expected to, learned a wild amount, made pots I love and my gut was better than ever!
My usual physical pain was nearly entirely absent (I think I've tied it to diet), and the weariness and muscle pain I did feel was satisfying after good hard work. The pace of the trip allowed for quiet time, alone time and socialising on our own terms so I was never too overwhelmed. In fact I have felt a loss moving back to Cornwall and having so much alone time. Am I being made into an extrovert?
Another lesson in my bravery came from taking up the axe... I am really good at wood splitting. A revelation that Hugo is thrilled by, being an axe connoisseur himself.
Aside from bravery, a lesson shared by Sofia and I, the girl from Finland, was that this life - this pottery making, kiln firing, communally creative life - is both possible and accessible. Meeting other potters and touring their studios, asking about how they made it all happen and how they continued to thrive has been revelatory. It's also helped me to justify investing in my own education and experiences in this field. I struggle to justify the cost of investing in my career, particularly with the low income of pottery sales, but it's feeling more possible, more justifiable and way more exciting than ever before.
I can't stop googling ceramics residencies, funding and apprenticeships. My visa poses a lot of issues for funding, but that'll eventually change. Things take time.
I also can't stop picking up my pots.
I am in two minds about them. One; I want people to love them as much as me and pay a lot of money to enjoy them. And two; I never want to part with them.
A few in particular are going to stay with me for as long as possible, but a few more I'm excited to show and sell. I'm excited to explain the alchemy and the wild heritage of wood firing and the process involved. Wood fired pots typically appeal more to potters than non-potters. Brown pots are things of the 70s and a bit 'old hat' to most people, but if you have an understanding of what's involved in wood firing, then there's so much a piece can tell you, so much magic and wonder involved in each individual piece's final appearance that it's hard to walk past them.
The heritage of wood firing in particular is something I thought about a lot while we were in Norway. The whole process of firing clay, often local wild clays, in a massive fire with no glaze and a LOT of labour is so intrinsic to the human history of pot-making and we were there, doing the very same thing in modern Norway. Yes, we did have electricity and a lot of tools to aid us, and yes, we had commercial clays and glazes and hundreds of years of knowledge accessible to us, but ultimately the process is deeply rooted in history and has an incredibly strong undercurrent of ritual and mythology.
The kiln lighting, closing and opening were all prefaced by rituals with song, spirit (alcohol and vibes), flowers and prayers. There was a strong sense of pagan beliefs and fire-worship all done a little bit tongue-in-cheek but also solemnly - no one wants to be the one to not take that ceremony seriously and screw up the firing.
I was blessed to be the one to light the kiln. Being the least experienced, it was my joy (and terror) to take the match to the fire and start the 6-day process. I was shaking. That's a lot of pressure for an anxious girlie.
We wetted the kiln with whiskey from Scotland and a Cypriot wine washed down our prayers as we watched the flames lick slowly into action. I was on that first shift, from midnight to 4 am, watching the sun set at 2am and rise again at 2.30am, red and glorious over the waterfall. The first 24 hours are very calm, tending a small campfire so as not to damage any of the wet pots inside. We wanted the slowest increase in temperature, letting the draft of the chimney pull the heat through gently, evaporating any last shred of water. By day 3 it was stoking action, throwing massive pieces of wet wood into the kiln to see them ignite immediately, shielding faces, hair and clothes from the intense heat as we fed the whale (the kiln's nickname).
By the end of the week, day 5/6, we barely had time to talk to one another on shift. Between prepping the bundles of wood to be thrown in, checking the pyrometers for movement and stability, we were endlessly stoking. Yelling over the waterfall and the fire's roar, "ready.... STOKE" every few minutes. The fires leapt out of the windows and the chimney and looking into the stoke holes was like looking into hell. UV glasses were a must - the heat and brightness has the power to melt corneas. My wet welding gloves sizzled as I pressed them to the kiln for short seconds, too long and you'll burn, but desperate to dry them out.
I woke at 7 on the final day, ready for my final 4 hour shift, followed by 2 hours of wood preparation. I had my "instant" coffee, ate my breakfast quickly and headed down to the suspiciously calm stoking crew coming off the graveyard shift. I was first there and their first words were "she's done! We need everyone to wake up".
I ran off to the tent site and gently tried to wake the exhausted 23 members up, apologising but everyone was up instantly, ready to see the final few pieces of wood go up in flames.
The finishing ritual was beautiful - each of us stoking one more piece of wood, prayers were said, a posey and various items were laid at the kiln door and we all bowed to the kiln. We remained bleary eyed watching the door be sealed up and the pyrometers eventually slow down and count backwards. Euphoria was the word of the day.
From there it was a whirlwind of cleaning, travelling, exploring the south of Norway while the kiln quietly cooled by the river, guarded by our posey of flowers and the faithful and wild Johanne from Denmark. The kiln opening took a whole day, live streamed across the world as people cried from the beauty and surprise of their work, from the breakages and maybe also from exhaustion. As people were delighted, curious and generally overwhelmed by the results of our weeks of work, we laid out each pot on tables stretching meters and meters from the kiln.
Over 1600 pots. I still can't believe it.
Later on, us girls went for a swim, washing away days of soot and sweat and emotions, bathing in the fjord that roared non stop. Seeing three generations of women frolic like proper Scandi's out in the wild was stuff of mythology. I miss them and the simplicity of our lives. The People of the Park.
I have been profoundly inspired and filled up with love for these people, this place and this craft. I am heartbroken in many ways to not be there any more and to know I'll never come close to repeating this experience, but knowing as well, that that's the beauty of it.
I'm booked already onto my next wood firing, here in Cornwall and focusing on using waste materials to make the pots themselves and their glazes. I'm also in chats with other potters about the wood kilns they're building down here in the deep south of England. I feel the tingly anticipation that this is going to be a big thing for me. BIG obsession incoming, big nerdy satisfaction where science and art collide.
As always, I'll keep you posted. Follow me on Instagram for more frequent updates and check out the shop or the residency page on my site for more info.
xx
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