Wood firing in asti

I have been invited to a wood firing in Asti, Piemonte, by my friend Guido Faletti. He built a phoenix fast firing wood kiln a couple of years ago and wanted to try a longer firing, to see some ash build-ups and effects. He gathered a wonderful group of people, everyone with his style and vision.

After glazing, wadding and loading the kiln, which took us a couple of days, we divided in 3 groups and started the firing, with 5 hours shifts. Everything went quite smooth, the kiln is very responding and easy to control. We spent several hours under 1200°, in order to give time to the ashes to build up and melt. Some sieved ash was also fed into the kiln to push the effects of the longer firing. After a total of 35 hours, the cones went down and we called it done.

During the cooling is a good idea to leave the kiln, to clear one’s mind and not to be tempted to peek.. We went to visit Alberto Bagetto, a long term ceramist who just finished building a train kiln, and was kind enough to show us every detail and technical aspect of the kiln, and his studio.

After this little trip, it was finally time to see the results of our firing. Pieces came out very interesting, some pots have really cool effects of ash or ash and glazes interaction.

It was the first wood firing for some of my newest glazes, and they really behaved. What I brought was made in only collected materials, both clays and glazes, so I’m very happy on the results! You will see pictures of the finished work in the next weeks.

Thanks Guido and Maurizio Agostinetto for the invitation and hospitality, and to Anna Basile, Allegra Valente, Alberta Clavarino and Kyra Orbons for sharing this experience and for the great pictures.

Pictures below are by Allegra Valente, Anna Basile and me.