Christian Bruun's porcelain light holders

These beautifully delicate porcelain tealight holders, made by Christian Bruun, came out of the firing of the Olsen Cross draught kiln at Guldagergaard yesterday.

This work came out of the third Bourry Box firing of the Woodfire Marathon today. It is by Maria Hartikainen of Sweden.
It was fired right in the front of the kiln chamber and is here photographed just after having been removed from the kiln, before it had even been dusted off of ashes!

The last night of the firing

The small firebox

The big firebox

Josh stoking

Nina stoking

Wood stacked for the night's stoking.

We are now into our third night's stoking, and plan to finish the firing sometime between eight and ten tomorrow morning.

Cross Draught Firing today

Markus and Richard discussing the finer points of firing...

Nina stoking

The kiln yard last night

Renata lit the kiln

Report from Guldagergard: kiln firing today!

Pedro finishing work for the Cross Draught firing, which we will start packing tomorrow!
Leena has made pads of wadding to shield her printed image from ash, while hopefully some colour will penetrate. The wadding is a version of Marc Lancet's rice husk wadding, using cracked wheat instead of rice husks. 

The firing started at 6am and now, at 10.30am, we can begin to crank it up a bit....

We are firing without a pyrometer this time which gives a much more relaxed stoking style I think!

Soda kiln firing just finished

Sten Lykke Madsen and Kenneth Marquart have just finished a soda firing here at Gudagergaard.

Here Kenneth is putting in soda

Stoking

And here he is taking out a test ring

Soda ready

Sunday morning

Last night I threw a whole board full of small round porcelain vases - it is a good feeling to wake up on sunday morning and know that they will be dry enough to complete this morning, and that they can be in the next firing of the Bourry Box kiln on thursday... In the last firing the thrown vases were more successful than the pinched ones - so no need to put the effort into pinching them when the thrown ones have the charm I was looking for - will photograph them today to show my point...

Bourry Box kiln unpacked

Figure by Sten Lykke Madsen



Transparency...



These pictures are by Marie Weichmann - thank you Marie - as my camera battery was flat at the vital moment.
The firing showed clearly that we used a lot of pine wood -there was runny greeny ash on some things. Next time we must mix more of the ash wood with the pine. Next firing of this kiln will be next week - wednesday! Great to be able to put ideas into action almost immediately.
And I think we lacked a vital 5 or 10 degrees or so in temperature.

Soda kiln firing tomorrow

Marie Weichman placing a piece in the kiln



Sten Lykke Madsen explaining the firing to the team.
The firing starts tomorrow evening.

Firing over

Two of the firing team looking happy as the pyrometer finally reads 1300 degrees celsius at 1 am
Pedro from Portugal and Leena from Finland.





The new crossbar grate functioned perfectly and cones 11 went down front and rear.


Visitors to the firing: Center Director Mette Marcher and her sons William (7) and Christian (nearly 3).

Today the kiln has cooled to 400 degres celcious already - pyrometer temperature - but there is no approaching it until tomorrow evening at the earliest.

Meanwhile a Soda firing is being packed and will start on Saturday night (tomorrow) at midnight. It is largely filled by Sten Lykke Madsen's work, but the participants in the Woodfire Marathon will have tests in the kiln and will help with the firing to gain experience for their soda firing later in the week.

Kiln ready to light...

The Bourry Box kiln "Skælskør Express" will be lit in an hour - at midnight.
It has a new chimney, bricked higher up and with a relatively shorter pipe. The new innovation on this firing will be a removable grid resting on the hobs which will enable us to stoke with shorter wood, of which we have a great deal!
In the kiln are tests of clays sent from Germany by Markus Böhm, who comes up to join the Marathon later in August.
Each paricipant in the marathon has pieces in the kiln, and tests of glazes and clays.

Akio Takamori at Guldagergaard

Akio Takamori has been working at Guldagergaard since the beginning of July, and last week he mounted 4 heads on the gable wall of the Applehouse Gallery