Kilns, like other ovens, have little tricks and pitfalls that only their regular users can grasp. I took my inexpert pottery, wrapped in t-shirts and plastic sheeting, across the magnificent 25 de Abril bridge to AR.CO where I'd arranged to rent a kiln for firing the first of the new work. Loading them carefully onto the constructed platforms, Marianne (the expert potter) explained how the heat moved in spirals, how certain parts would be affected, why some of the work need propping up and supporting as it baked, and dispelled my anxiety with a string of smart and enthusiastic solutions. I had good reason to be anxious too; the clay was still wet, was combined unnaturally with steel mesh, was a mixture of high and low temperature varieties, and was already brutally cracking. But then the kiln door closed, the temperature and timer set, and we drove home.
This was on Monday.
Today we went back to see the results. Amazing transformations in colour and weight, eye-wateringly fragile things that I didn't realise I liked so much. The steel has almost disintegrated structurally, though it fools you by still looking like mesh...Every bump on the way back to the studio made me wince. And just when I thought I was home and dry (you know where this one's going), I knocked one over. I just watched it fall, with all the typical feelings of stupidity and amazement that happens when you take too much care over something that has no structural integrity. Atleast I didn't lunge after it and risk the others meeting a similar fate...maybe my adjustment to the Portuguese pace of life...
So there were six, and now there are five.
There will be more next week...
