The kiln room is buzzing with activity, heat rising into the three-story space, warming most of the building. We’ve taken to eating dinner outside, as the kitchen is stifling hot.
Thinking and taking time to be quite and still when stacking a kiln is essential. Ly creates a culture of stillness and slow attention to detail that I hope to hold always. She is a wealth of information and potential solutions to the multitude approaches seen daily or yearly in the center.
Ly and Bart survey the scene and strategy for transferring his large mural pieces. He’s made these in an open studio zone on the first floor on large canvas. The idea was to transfer these to the kiln stack – leaving the canvas to burn. Yet, when he worked with the clay englobe – he’s gotten it on the canvas, preventing successful firing without damaging the kiln shelves.
Pieka and Madekia are stacking the biggest kiln. Since the top shelves are far out of reach, Ly styles an ingenious cherry picker from a huge plastic bucket, long nylon straps and the hand forklift. Creative solutions abound as we each solve the delicate task of maneuvering dry clay pieces not yet fired.
Yoko’s kilns are stacked and unstacked in succession so one can hardly track the details of how many pieces she’ll have for the final installation. Our final presentations occur on the same evening, at opposite ends of the building.
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