Scenes from a soda firing

Photos from arguably my most exciting batch of work yet

I recently went upstate for my third soda firing and am happy to report back (and give you a sneak peek at) some of the coolest results I’ve ever gotten.

Soda firing is a special ceramic firing process that happens in a large gas kiln, typically upstate in the middle of nowhere because that’s where these beasts must live. It involves glaze firing pieces up to 2345ºF (Cone 10) and then introducing a mixture of sodium carbonate (hence soda) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) into the atmosphere of the kiln at that peak temperature. The soda is dissolved into water and the mixture is sprayed into the kiln through a port hole, instantaneously volatilizing, and carried throughout the kiln along the flame’s path. The soda interacts with the silica in the clay, and forms a glassy surface (sodium glaze) and smooth transitions between glazed surface and flashed (orange) raw clay body. Every piece needs to be propped up on little balls of clay called wadding to ensure the soda won’t fuse everything to the kiln shelves. But more importantly, the wadding allows the flame and soda to travel underneath a piece, giving the entire surface of the piece a fully dynamic and interesting finish. You can also put a fully glazed piece on a seashell with wadding underneath to create a shell imprint, as the shell will calcine and dissolve after firing but it’ll hold your piece up until the very end.

glazed ware waiting to be loaded, already propped up on wadding and shells

TLDR: Pieces may go into the kiln without any glaze but by the magic of science come out completely glossy.

before → after. no glaze went on this frog! peepee wadding

Ceramics as an art form is already a very unpredictable sport; you may do everything right, from building to glazing processes, but once your piece goes into the kiln, still anything goes. Atmospheric firing, on the other hand, takes that unpredictability to the next level. The most exciting thing about this most recent firing though, was that even though I still embraced that absolute unknown of how anything would come out, I felt like I had enough data from my previous two soda firings to have made slightly more intentional decisions that actually yielded in somewhat controlled results.

me loading the next shelf in

For example, for this piece below, I wanted the orange flashing to look like a sunburn on the frog’s back. Knowing that flashing typically occurs on the wadded side of a piece (the side closest to the kiln shelf, that gets the least soda and most flashing), I planned to wad it on its back. However, I also added an additional spray of glaze, directionally from the underside of the front of the frog. I hoped that in doing so, the glazed area not “exposed to the sun” would be “skin” color and the transition to orange flashed clay would be where the “sunburn” would actually be. And it worked!!! I have never gotten this much control from a piece before and it was exhilarating to see how well it came out.

a sunburnt baby all achieved with wadding placement and a little bit of glaze sprayed directionally

Besides the natural directionality that occurs in soda firing due to the cross-draft of the soda, I also played with an atomizer for the first time to create even more directional shifts in glaze color and surface. An atomizer is a little metal container that you fill with glaze and use your mouth to blow into a connected straw, and through some magic of science and pressure it pulls glaze out and sprays it like a spray booth with an air compressor would. Some pieces I ended up playing with 4 or 5 different glazes, all smoothly transitioning into one another with subtle gradients, and I really like how these results turned out.

before → after. an oribe glaze was sprayed on directionally from the left

I went upstate with an old friend (Joe) and some new friends (Sarah and Norah) and we were so fortunate to be accompanied by one of Sarah’s friends Robert, who is an incredible photographer and wanted to practice shooting video. He has a lot of ceramicist clients and has always been interested in atmospheric firing, so he came and documented a lot of the process, as well as some of the finished pieces.

norah, joe, me, and sarah captured on film by robert

I’ve never had my work professionally documented ever, so it was really cool to see my pieces through a new lens. And the photos just turned out absolutely gorgeous. (The video footage I’ll find time later on to compile and post on Instagram probably). Thank you Robert!!!

this picture makes me die it’s so gorgeous. thank you robert 1 million

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I missed last month’s newsletter because I was preparing for my birthday and convinced myself I deserved a month off. So even though I broke my promise for 1 newsletter a month, I am still committing to 4 sales a year and all the pieces from this next firing will be in the next sale coming up 7/11 at 12 EST. I’ll again include some random bits and bobs from class demos and such, but I’m hoping to keep my focus on finishing up some overdue commissions and projects before I truly commit to making many more things. I have so much I’m excited to share with yall and keep waiting for the right time to post things, but I still want to give you all here early access so here’s a bunch of out of context images of things I’ve been doing lately.

commission, new piece i made in a workshop, pieces at renewfinds, and another finally finished commission

Thanks for reading! Enjoy this pic of me at the beach during the 100ºF crisis last week. I appreciate everyone who’s ever expressed having read these newsletters to me directly. It really makes me feel blessed and have a reason to keep writing. I’m so grateful!
-J