Saturday, August 8, 2009

Pit Fire!



We had a pit fire today out at Golden Gardens. A pit fire is pretty simple, you keep your bisqued pots in a blazing fire for about 2 hours, then let the fire and coals burn down for a few more hours, and voila! The results are a little unpredictable, but totally lovely. It was abnormally cold for August (but not surprising for Seattle), however it being a little chilly worked in our favor. Standing by a roaring fire all day in the summer heat would have been shittay!

Here's a little collection of pics from the day. Enjoy!


Our prepping station.


You can get a lot of different results depending on how you treat the pots before firing them. We wrapped ours in bits of copper Chore Boys, some salt-soaked raffia, and a few people used some banana peel (the banana peel = SO AWESOME. It made these little metallic streaks).


We had some sawdust and copper carbonate in the bottom of our pit (don't breathe in that smoke, people!), as well as a large amount of donkey poo. I know it sounds gross, but it's very grassy and not smelly, even when it burns.


You go through A LOT of wood when you have to keep a fire roaring for 2 hours.


Put a fork in 'em! After about 5 hours in the pit, the pots are ready to start cooling.


Not one of mine, but I love it.


Again, not one of mine, but I love it. Check out the markings the raffia left on it. Gorgeous!


Still not mine, but I love it!


This one's mine! I wasn't expecting the blue terra-sigillata (stuff I painted on it before the bisque fire) to stay so bright!


Marks left by the copper Chore Boy that was wrapped around it.


I know they look a little dull now, but these will get polished with oil and be super shiny and more vibrant then. I need to get some special oil for it, but I'll be sure to post an after pic when I finish it up.

2 comments:

Tirzah said...

I love the bright blue on yours. How fun! :)

Vicki said...

Thanks, T! I can't wait to get it all polished and shiny!