Traditional Ceramic Firing

While at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum on Saturday and before the gourd class, I watched a demonstration of traditional method of wood firing pottery.

 Diego, a ceramicist from Mata Ortiz, Mexico, started a wood fire. He place his pot near the fire on a metal stand, so it would slowly warm.

 Jan Diers shared the story about the pottery that is created in the little mountain village in Mexico.

 Diego tended the fire, adding wood and turning his ceramic pot.

 Once the fire had burned to his satisfaction, the stand and pot were placed in the wood ashes...

And the ceramic pot placed on top of them on blocks of wood to allow the fire to draw air.

 Diego place pieces of cottonwood around the ceramic pot...

 added some saw dust and lighter fluid, and set the wood on fire, heating the ceramic pot and the newly painted pot inside.

 He let the cottonwood pieces burn to ash, not adding any more than the single layer he had placed around it. The larger ceramic pot was left over the little pot for two hours.

 This is the pot he took out of the fire. He told me it did not fire very well on the first firing, so he re-fired it for the afternoon demonstration.

Isn't this beautiful detailed work? The rich red outline and the black background with the itty-bitty unpainted spaces. WOW! I was very impressed. 

I will show some of the other pieces that were on display later.