We are set to fire the kiln this weekend. It has been just over a year since our last firing. We took a break to allow Casey's dad to recover from major back surgery (hopefully not caused by lifting heavy kiln shelves!) but now we are geared up and set to fire. We still have pots to glaze and need to load the kiln, but we expect the kiln firing to be in full swing on Saturday. Looking forward to it - it has been too long!

The kiln is getting loaded and readied for our next firing this weekend. While Casey and I do not have any pots ready for this firing, Casey's dad has been busy throwing pots and we have invited some of the clay students at Waxahachie High School to include their pots in the firing. A few students and their awesome teacher, Carl Block, might even show up to help stoke the kiln. We have purchased a new digital pyrometer as well as some new oxide-bonded silicon carbide shelves to use in the front of the kiln that are rated up to cone 16, so this will be a good test for the new equipment!

After a long hibernation, we are finally ready to get back to making some pottery and firing our kiln. We'll keep you posted on our next kiln firing! Also, we have yet to post photos of the firing and pots from our last firing in the Fall. I'll catch up and post them soon...

We have unloaded the kiln from our latest firing and we are very pleased with a lot of the pots. We have decided to have a booth at the annual TKS Pumpkin Patch & Street Fair this year. The event is Saturday, October 10th from 9am - 3pm. It is held on the lawn of the Kessler Park United Methodist Church at 1215 Turner Avenue in Dallas. This event is great for the kids as well as adults. Visit www.thekesslerschool.com for more info.

After a long burn ban in East Texas, our kiln is finally loaded and ready to go. We'll post pictures as soon as we have it unloaded!

We fired our kiln for the third time over Spring Break. We started the firing at 3am on March 16th and finished at 2am the next morning. I think mentally this was the toughest firing so far, only because we were trying to avoid another shelf meltdown near the front of the kiln. We were constantly analyzing the temperatures throughout the kiln to try and not get the front end too far beyond cone 12 and we were having trouble getting the back end to cone 9/10. We also mis-stacked some shelves at the bottom near the front, so the flames couldn't even get to the pots from behind the bag wall. Some of those pots did not reach temperature and will have to be re-fired. As with the first two firings we were still very pleased with a majority of the pots. The amount of ash we are getting on some of the pots is really cool. Casey had made some much larger pots than he did the first two firings which meant they took up a lot of room and not all the pots would fit in the kiln. So now with the leftovers and those that need re-firing we already have a jump on being able to fill the kiln for the next time. Right now we are hoping for early June as soon as the kids are out of school.

At this time we are planning to fire the kiln again (finally!) over Spring Break. We don't feel like we've been able to spend too much time throwing pots lately, but maybe having a deadline will kick us into high gear!

We've had several people asking if our pots are for sale. Most of them are...so if you see something you like, please email us at jen@jstudiopots.com or kc@jstudiopots.com to inquire about pricing and availability. Thanks!

We went down to Crockett last weekend to unload our kiln after our second kiln firing. We were excited, but still worried about how the pots turned out. We unloaded the kiln in the late evening on 11.22.08 and overall we were pleased with the pots (well...most of them anyway). I think there is an addictive side to firing the kiln and you have to know when to say enough and stop the firing. We had cone 12 flat in a couple of places in the kiln - and our clay and glazes were all cone 10. We had a major meltdown of the shelves at the front of the kiln near where the flames enter the chamber from the firebox and two shelves-worth of pots were ruined. Some of the glazes ran down on a few pots, but we also had some really great ash on the pots in general. We have posted photos of the latest pots from the firing on our "Pot Photos" page so please check them out.