October Kiln Firing

Brian crams fuel in blasting off the kiln. Flames travel over 32 feet,

shooting out of the flue pipes almost 5 feet in the air!

The groundhog kiln was fired over October 18-20. As firings go, it was a bit shorter, but always just as grueling. In order to have a successful firing, dry wood is of paramount importance. Even slightly damp wood will cause failure to reach the required 2,300 F degrees and the kiln will hover endlessly at about 2,000 F.

A low pressure system was still over the area as I started the kiln in the afternoon. The weather forecast called for it to be pushed out by a high by evening. The winds were to be around 5-10 mph, which is more than ideal, but I hoped they would die down at dark. Some of the wood was slightly damp feeling and we spread it out in the sunshine to dry completely. I wasn't used to the chilly temps the first evening and wound up pulling my truck up in front of the kiln and ducking in between stokings to warm up.

Near the end of firing a groundhog kiln, a large amount of fuel must be crammed in the firebox to push the temps over the top to shine the glaze and fully mature the clay body. This is called "blasting off" the kiln. Brian is the king of blasting off, a true pyromaniac! He showed up the final few hours of firing to help Sarah and me finish it off.

It will take 4-5 days for the kiln to cool enough to unload. We took the front temps up to cone #12 in hopes of ensuring the back reached required temps. Sometimes, this results in over-firing and some of the pots in front will melt to the kiln floor. An unpleasant mess! We hope this didn't happen. I will post photos of some of the pots when they come out shortly.

Glowing red flue pipes attest to the incredible heat during the final hour or so

Hot Time in the Old Town!

photo courtesy of Reggie Fraser

The August firing of the groundhog kiln went really well, inspite of the brutal upper 90 degree weather. Oh well, it was typical southern USA August weather. It took us around 38 hours from start to finish. I had tears in my eyes and was contemplating giving pottery up forever at about hour # 30! I'd just had it, my feet were killing me and was feeling real sorry about ever striking that match.

Fortunately, Sarah fixed me a nice bench with a cushion where I could sniffle, whine and doze off for 40 minutes or so. That helped! When I awoke, Sarah had the kiln ramped up to about 2,000 degrees. Soon, our good friend Dean showed up and did some serious wood-chucking. Thanks, Buddy! It was a great sight to see all of our combined efforts send the flames shooting about 3 feet out of the chimney and to know bed was getting real close! Bryan showed up the final hour to relieve all of us and get it to the finish line. I'm posting photos of a few pieces.

It was a treat to unload it 4 days latter and see the results of a lot of hard work and many hours of labor. I am constantly agitated as I look at eBay auctions and see the same people tagging "Old Edgefield" on to their pottery and deceiving the buyer over and over. Once again, when you fire your pots in an electric or gas kiln using fake ash glazes, it has nothing to do with wood-fired Old Edgefield-style pottery. The Pattons of Travelers Rest, SC have it right when they describe their great work as "Edgefield inspired" and others should follow their lead.

I'm looking forward to the several shows coming up in the next 2 months and to the next firing in September. Thanks to all who help and support me in my efforts to keep alive the Old Edgefield pottery making tradition!

Good June firing

We fired up the kiln on a hot day. It was 102 degrees F both days the kiln was fired. It took us about 40 hrs. to bring it up to around a cone#11. Thank god Brian showed up at about hour 37 because I was suffering from extreme heat exhaustion, having got chills and all of that scary stuff earlier. Brian represented a pure, rested, air-conditioned hunk-o-meat and promptly jumped on that fire and set it to blasting! I think the kiln was sick of me and my whining. Brian brought it home with the front screaming hot at about a cone #11 in two short hours. I don't think Sarah and I could have done it without his fresh body there those last 2 hours! I owe you big time, Brian!

The past couple of firings had been problematic due to some of the old heart pine wood on hand had lots of white-wash on it. Now, who'd have ever thought that stuff could cause so many problems? I guess white-wash is made from seashells and who knows what else. Calcium Carbonate or something. We were recycling old wood.gold stuff on mini face jug

On all of the pots, well, I mean all of the pot's sides facing the fire, the residuals from the white -wash caused a very pronounced gold colorization. And I mean Gold! It was in stark contrast to the normal drippy ash glaze on the other side of the pots. I had a tremendous amount of this fine old heart pine. I couldn't burn it all over the course of 3 firings, so I hauled it home to the baby groundhog kiln located there. I couldn't bring myself to toss it all in a dump somewhere. The gold color will represent one more lesson in wood-firing stoneware pottery in the Old Edgefield tradition. When's school gonna be over?

nice slip-trailed jug

The heat of those two days sure took a toll on me. On the first day of firing the groundhog kiln I also hosted our clay group, Clay Artists of the Southeast (CASE), doing our first pit-firing of pieces we made like the Stallings Island people. These pots were made from indigenous clay with Spanish Moss mixed into it to temper the clay. By temper, I mean it opens the clay body up some and allows it to dry and fire over open flame without cracking. We took about 4 hours for the whole process and got some nice pieces out. Unfortunately, 2 large pieces got licked by the flame too soon and popped a couple of flakes out of the sides.

Stallings-type pot bathed by fire and Stallings pots cooling down after firing

I hosted a second firing a short while later and it wasn't quite as hot, only a balmy 96 degrees with about the same in humidity. Some fool had turned on the sprinkler system at Enterprise Mill and most of my wood had got thoroughly soaked over-night before we started the pit-fire at 8:00am Sat. June 28. I had a lot of sweet thin slats under a tarp that I was saving to blast the groundhog kiln with on the next firing which I had to use for this primitive firing. Well, it was all worth it because we got some nice stuff out and didn't loose a thing really.

The primitive stuff will go on display at Augusta State University as a part of the Westobou Festival coming up in September 08. I'm ready to load the groundhog kiln as about 2 loads are backed up after spinning my wheels with the white-washed wood. I'm laying in the last of the new wood for the firing and hope to hit it in the next two weeks. Oh! A good friend, Dean, was on hand the night of one of the past firings this Spring when our fearless firefighters showed up with that damn giant, loud, ladder truck right in the middle of the firing. Here's a couple of photos.

As a gift or as payola, the firemen took with them an under-fired face jug which now resides above their bunks in the firehouse. They also put in an order for a medium size spittoon with their station logo slip-trailed on it. The ranking guy really got me going by saying they were going to have to "lay" down some water, since they had to respond. When I asked where he was going to lay it down, he said, " in the kiln, naturally." Well, I got to shaking so bad I could barely croak out a " like hell you are" response. He started laughing and replied with a stinging "GOT 'CHA". What a firing!a better match couldn't be had!

An Amazing Tradition

I would like to invite you to view my work in the 20th Anniversary Show at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, SC. I juried into this show which was wonderfully curated. It runs from April 25-Sept.7, 2008.












As more and more people become aware of the unique ceramic tradition that started in the Old Edgefield District of South Carolina, the prices at auction of the few old original pieces skyrocket. While I have not conducted an exhaustive survey of past and present American potters and sales of their work, I can state few have reached the prices being fetched by the famous slave potter, Dave Drake. With a single pot of his commanding well over $100k at auction, it is not only collectors who should sit up and take notice, but also ceramic historians and experts. True, and shameful, that Dave never received a dime from the sales of his pots. As a slave, he was required to make pots for his various masters.


Dave, more than any other factor, is responsible for the increased valuation on all of the Old Edgefield-style pottery, even that which was made when the tradition spread into Georgia and North Carolina. We know from the surviving pots, especially the pots Dave made and inscribed his original prose on, that he was much more than a pot turner. In a time when it was illegal for a slave to read or write, Dave proudly incised his poems and name, along with his master's name, boldly across pots which were shipped across the south as well as used locally. People who purchased them had to know something of why they were the only pots made with a cryptic couplet or bold script signiture. The historical record shows next to nothing about Dave other than him being sold or transfered to another master or showing up in a census count. Undoubtedly, people of the Old Edgefield District and beyond had to know something was special or unusual about Dave, even to the point of looking the other way in regard to laws of the time.

His cryptic prose and majestic pots are all we have to help us to try to look into the soul of this most unusual being. He shook the bonds which enslaved him for almost 70 years of his life when the Civil War ended and he was emancipated. Perhaps this next fact sheds more light on Dave, to me, than any other. A sherd was recovered recently which is inscribed in Dave's hand and dated 1867. Most assumed Dave stopped potting in 1865 with the end of the war. To me, I think Dave was a master potter and that his relationship with clay superceeded any monetary gains or concerns. I do hope that he was finally a master of his own destiny as well as recipient of whatever financial returns his pottery might have brought. But he continued at his advanced age, making the pots he had made for most of his life. He was a master in the medium of clay and unparalleled in American ceramics.