A river of fire washed through them.

At 7 am Adam started firing the kiln. He said the best time to watch would be about 4 so I got on with painting until then.
By 4 it was just turning towards twilight. In the studio Adam and his friend were feeding wood into the kiln. As darkness fell outside they watched the temperature gauge and pushed it up, just a little higher each time, feeding log after log into the ovens. Each firing would take a tonne of wood.
It seemed after a while that the thing inside the kiln really was alive, really was being fed, an elemental dragon of pure fire.
From the furnace at the bottom the flames went up and curled back around, pulled through and across the pots packed inside by the chimney, a river of fire washing over the clay. Inside earth, fire, air feeding it.
In Japan, he said, they had kiln gods on top of each kiln during firing.
In Japan sometimes they would fire for a week, kilns climbing up the side of a mountain, flames passing from chamber to chamber.
There is a balance between the two, feeding the wood, watching the heat, colour of the flames. There is a heat from the kiln that is wonderful in the cold of winter. And the light when the spy hole reveals the beast inside the kiln. Sometimes it reaches out. You can see the cones that test the temperature and behind the curve of a moonjar and perhaps the shine of the glaze?
Ailsa had made pizza dough and they had fasghioned an oven on the chimney of the kiln. In the morning they had cooked bacon, now pizzas. Slightly sooty at first, then the technique was perfected. Delicious.


 

Finally the temperature reached a height they were happy with. Tiime to go, to leave the fire to die, to leave the kiln and the jars to cool, but before then Adam removed some of the bricks from teh back of the chimney and showed me how the fire inside flowed. If it was hot enough flames would even come out of the chimney top.

When I left the studio and drove off past the pond with the swans it was dark. All the way home I had visions of fire and Japanese kiln gods and chambers of fire climbing high mountain sides passing through my mind's eye.


Tomorrow, at 2, the kiln will be cool enough to open. Tomorrow, at 2.

The language of fire

I rise early to find that the fire is still warm, the wall behind it, still warm and in the ashes bright embers glow. I feed the cats. I feed the fire. First with the fire, small pieces of card then tiny twigs and scraps of bark. Life and light and warmth begin to dance from it as kindling and the smallest logs are fed and flames dance. And all the while cats twine around, wondering why this creature is being fed first.
Yesterday Jude came round. Jude, who has had a log burner for years and was telling me how it was possible to keep one going all night. All I could say was, I tried but I can’t. Doesn’t matter what I do. And she told me how you stack it up then close down the air feeds, and I said yes, I had tried, but it just went out. So, last night I tried. This morning, the house still warm, without the chill of winter at its heart, the fire a sleeping animal waiting to be woken.
Listen more, talk less. A lesson I keep reminding myself I need to do.
But at least I listened enough this time. Thanks Jude.

I love the language of fires; wood, ember, kindling, smoke, spark, flame, warmth, ash.