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 You're all invited to the Rabbit Hash Community Pit Firing. If you've never participating in such an event, or don't know what it is... Pit fired pottery is the oldest known method of firing clay. Unfired pots are nestled together in a pit in the ground and are then covered with burnable materials. The top of the pit may be protected with moist clay, shards, larger pieces of wood or metal baffles. The filled pit is then set on fire and carefully tended until most of the inner fuel has been consumed. After cooling, pots are cleaned to reveal dramatic patterns and colors left by ash and salt deposits. -- Source: Wikipedia on Pit-Fired Pottery
The Community Pit-Firing begins on July 11th and is for both kids and adults. It will be done in three stages on three separate days. To participate, you do not need to stay for the entire 4 hours of each session. Read on for the full pit-firing schedule.
PIT FIRING SCHEDULE
Preparing the Clay
Wednesday, July 11th from 1:00 to 5:00 PM
During this time we will crush the dried clay (dug from Kenny Williamson's property) and sift it through screens to separate out the impurities and add a bit of fine sand to the powdered clay. We will then add water so that it will be moist enough to create a vessel.
Hand Building and Pouring Vessels
Friday, July 27th from 1:00 to 5:00 PM
During this time we will use the clay (that we prepared at the first session) to create vessels. These will be fired in the the final step of pit-firing.
Pit-Firing
Thursday, August 9th at 10:00 AM
Vessels should be wrapped for firing before going into the pit. This will be done before 10:00 AM. At 10:00 AM the pit will be loaded and the firing will begin. Loading the pit will require a layer of straw, a 6" layer of saw dust, charcoal briquettes, bags of shredded paper, rock salt, flat layers of carboard, a trailor load of driftwood, and wooded skids if available. We will have to find sources for some of these supplies.
For more information, please contact
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Pit Firing
By: Donna King on 07-26-2007 10:36
Saw the writeup on pit firing. Sounds very interesting. I'd love to try it myself. It is very gratifying to see something that you handbuilt yourself.
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