Tuesday Evening Pit Firing

Christine Bull’s Tuesday evening class had a wonderful pit firing at Sarah Bowler’s house on 21st May.  There is also a display of photos in the corridor at The Pottery and there will be a display in the cabinet.

This is the second pit-fire day Sarah has hosted at her home near Petworth – our first was last summer and this time we had almost a full class joining in.  We started at 9.30 loading the pit with tubes of newspaper round the edge to draw the draught in, sawdust, copper sulphate, seaweed, salt, pots, more sawdust, kindling and large timbers. Some of our pieces were sprayed with salt, iron, copper or seaweed solution. Once a good fire was going we covered it with corrogated sheeting and went for a much needed coffee and cake on Sarah’s terrace.

We did 3 raku firings during the day, plus one smoke firing, while the pit did it’s job, so either side of lunch we were busy!  Lunch was, yet again, a wonderful ‘pot’ lunch and the weather was ideal for relaxing outside.

This time we decided to let the pots cool till the next day, so many of us returned the following evening to dig into the ‘lucky dip’!  We are pleased generally with our pots and forms – it is so exciting washing them off and polishing them.  Sarah’s partner took some wonderful photos during the day.

Christine

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