In February of this year Paulette Dove, a local painter and art educator, taught a workshop at the Ohr on how to make a paper kiln, a technique she learned at NCECA the last time it was in New Orleans. It’s similar to a pit firing, a low and slow method that creates marks from added materials and fuming. You cover the pots in all sorts of strange stuff like banana peels, rock salt, and seaweed then wrap them in aluminum foil before you build the temporary kiln around them and fire it up. The process for the Paper Kiln was really fun and everyone was feeding off the energy.

Ever since, I’ve been wanting to add a new alternative firing process at the studio besides the raku that we can do on a regular basis. That’s where Kathleen Varnell comes in. Along with being a ceramic artist for many years, Kathleen was also the Curator at the Mississippi Museum of Art. She does a Smoke Firing in a barrel, which is similar to the paper kiln, and she was kind enough to share her process with us in the Ohr studio. You can use the aluminum foil saggar for this kind of firing, too, if you’re looking for more color. But, these are some results without adding anything but the sawdust and paper.

Barrel firing is on the very low end of the temperature spectrum for ceramics (seldom going above 1500℉,) and work is usually fired to bisque beforehand. Although this way of firing isn’t good for any sort of surface you would want to eat off of, you get some beautiful results. There’s a lot of subtlety and drama available from firing this way, and the “set it and forget it” way of firing makes it a very appealing option for finishing a pot.

Some of the oldest pottery discovered was fired similarly, and the carbon coming from the combustible material used creates effects usually only seen in nature.