PLAYING WITH FIRE-JAN 2019
…well not exactly fire, but I have begun playing with my new kiln. I’ve found it a bit traumatic for two reasons.
Firstly, I don’t really know what I’m doing! I was surprised to find less advice online than I had hoped for…and then of course there’s the issue of conflicting advice (just as when you google your illness symptoms and find out that on the one hand you may have pneumonia or on the other an in-growing toenail!).
So I asked all the brilliant potters I know for advice and eventually decided to just Get On With It, particularly as the supplier told me “the kiln comes with a pre-programmed controller so nothing can go wrong”. (Only, when I taught myself how the controller worked I discovered it was only pre-programmed with four instead of ten programmes and those four didn’t match the list in the manual…so plenty could have gone wrong! However, I put the programmes back in and got on with the first ‘burning in’ firing and that was fine.)
The second reason for feeling anxious is much more deep seated. You see I have some bad memories of fire (and yes I know these electric kilns don’t have actual flames…but they do get very hot!!)
When I was a kid, my mum used to arrive home after work absolutely exhausted because as well as looking after my brother and I, she was also house keeper to a widower with five children. She would frequently fall asleep and forget whatever cooking appliance was on the stove. The worst smell was white fish that she was cooking for the cat, which boiled dry and was stuck to the bottom of the pan, but the most dangerous incident was the chip pan. We had not one, not two, but three chip pan fires in the space of a year and the last one involved the fire brigade, because by the time mum smelt it, the kitchen cupboard was alight too! Mum’s knee jerk reaction was to get the flaming pan outside, but of course as soon as she opened the back door the air simply fanned the flames which blew into her face. Luckily she escaped with a singed fringe and eyebrows …it could have been a lot worse. After that we bought mum a closed lid deep fat fryer!
So, they say art is therapy! Even though I’m reluctant to play with fire, I have got on with it and carried out my first biscuit firing. The birds and vases are intact thus far and ready for their next (even hotter) firing. The kiln shed has NOT burnt down. The kiln DID switch itself off at the correct time and I am feeling a lot more confident- must be time for a celebratory chip butty!!
adrienne hughes art 