Wetting yourself in Italy- Depends!

I’m starting to think about my course in Italy at the end of October. I want people to leave the course making better work. I don’t want it to be a greed fest where people do what they do at home to fill the kiln. I want to be able to walk into the room and see a signature in each person’s work. My philosophy for my workshops is imitate, improvise and innovate.

I emailed Claudia to see what kind of kiln we can fire the work that we classify as racers. I have the option of a big soda kiln or doing a carbon trap shino gas firing. I made my living in another life doing wood fired salt and then a decade doing carbon trap shino. What I like about both these atmospheric firings is that the pots look wet. The carbon trap shino was very hard to photograph because it was so shiny and wet looking.  Here is a pic of a jug that I made probably 5 years ago when I was in search of soot. I used to correspond with the Queen of Shino Malcolm Davis about the illusiveness of this maverick glaze. I was nailing it! We will do a firing in his honour.

So it all DEPENDS on the size of the group and the quality of the making which kiln we will choose. Hell, I am excited about both possibilities. A double soda option!  Depends!