Kiln!

Vocab first, since not everyone knows the word "kiln".  It's a metal box, similar to an oven, which is used to fire pottery, glass, or metal, depending on the type of kiln.  The formal pronunciation is "kill", though recently it has become acceptable to include the "n", and that's how I say it.

The primary medium I'm currently using is a formulation of bronze that needs to be fired in a kiln in order to finish.  Up to this point, I was using the kiln in my university's Art Department through an Independent Study class.  That magic kiln-for-free time ran out early August, however, and I've been kiln-less.

No longer!


There are many kilns like it.  This one is mine!

The fun part is that I spent a good couple of weeks slagging pieces in the Art Dept kiln whilst figuring out the ideal temperature range, which varies from kiln to kiln.  I haven't yet begun the testing process with this one yet, and am not particularly looking forward to scaling the shiny new learning curve, but it must be done.

(Yes, I'm the sort of pretentious ass who un-ironically uses words like "whilst".  I'd apologize, but I'm not really sorry, so...)

Hopefully, I will soon be posting pics of new work, and hopefully those pictures won't be mis-shapen lumps of bronze.  There's a couple of special orders I need to get in the mail soon, and it would be nice if I didn't have to sculpt them multiple times.  My experience with art, however, is usually that getting it right the first time is not the best goal.  Far better to play around until you like it than to set unreasonable expectations.

So that's the latest: KILN!  I miss the days of setting my hair on fire with my acetylene torch (oh, calm down, it was just the bangs, and only a few times) but contained fire is better than none.

It is, sadly, not larger on the inside.