The slow kiln
Three days of wood, ash and patience in a hillside anagama, and the bowls that come out the other side.
The kiln is lit before dawn. For the next seventy hours someone will be awake beside it, feeding split pine into the firebox every few minutes.
Nothing about it is efficient. That is rather the point: the ash that drifts through the chamber settles on the shoulders of each pot and melts into a glaze no one can quite predict.
Reading the flame
Temperature is read by colour as much as by pyrometer. Orange, then yellow, then a white so bright it hurts to look at through the spy hole.
You don't fire this kiln. You keep it company.
The potter
When the firing ends the kiln is sealed and left to cool for a week. Opening it feels less like unpacking and more like an excavation.