The Anagama kiln out at West Campus was built by KU students in 1999, and this last fall was the 16th annual collaborative firing between KU students and the local Lawrence Arts Center students. Every year around November, a wonderful group of people get together to fire this beast of a kiln, that takes 2 full days to load and 4-5 days (around the clock) to fire.
If you've never fired a wood kiln before, it is truly a community endeavor! Multiple cords of wood donated by local arborists are split by the community members, and this wood is then fed to the kiln slowly over the course of the week — getting up to temperatures around 2300+ degrees (or Cone 12-13, for us ceramics nerds)
Foggy wood prep day in mid October (left) and loading the anagama this year (right)
This firing was an interesting one — everything was going very smoothly but towards the end of the firing, we noticed that one of the stacks of pottery near the back had tipped over and was gently resting on the stack in front of it, so that we could not stoke through the usual stoke hole. The experienced among us made the call to go ahead and wrap up the firing a little early, just in case the leaning got worse.
Upon unloading, some pots in the very back may have been a little less glossy — but overall there were so few losses compared to what we expected! We found that it was most likely a level loading issue that caused it, and everyone will likely keep an eye out for that during the next annual anagama firing.
Firing this kiln is always a special time, and I highly recommend trying community firings like this if you haven't ever participated in one before.
Photos posted by the Lawrence Arts Center, 2022
Zeynep Uner is the current kiln and wheel repair apprentice at Bracker’s, working directly with David Sturm (the head tech) on repairs large and small. She has been repairing kilns for approximately 3 years now, and has been absorbing everything she possibly can from David’s 30+ years in the field.
Zeynep enjoys atmospheric firing, taking film photos, and throwing on her old Brent kick wheel.
