Oxford Kilns

This. Thank you Ben. It is absolutely perfect and exactly what we have long needed.

These by Simon Horton - Three jugs from the 88th firing Oxford Kilns, unpacked this morning. I’ve fired a lot of wood kilns now, but this was the first firing I’ve led from start to finish: the first on which I’ve split all of the wood, made decisions on how to fire and when to finish and how to cool, assembled a crew and coordinated the thing. It’s a lot of logistics. It makes the pots more personal.

For this firing I wanted to experiment with downfiring the kiln in reduction in order to draw out flame markings and moody patches on some high iron clays. I had the idea that the usual process of reoxidation as a wood kiln cools did something to erase the work done in painting the pots with flame, over the near 60 hours to temperature. So we fired on for a further five hours after the cones went down, stoking small pieces of wood into the front firebox between 1100°c and 900°c to arrest the drop in temperature to a maximum of 50°c/hour. Honestly? A lot of the kiln was pretty indistinguishable from firings I’ve been involved with which have concluded by simply clamming up the door and calling it a day. That might have been down to the clays I used. These jugs excited me, though. They’re close to the sort of surface effect I was looking for. I am forever learning.

Huge thanks to my amazing team, without whom these pots (and many more) wouldn’t exist:
Gemma Smale
George Perry Pots
SW

Ellie Perry


And of course to Robin Alexander Wilson Oxford Kilns for trusting me with his kiln and allowing us such a special time up in the woods.

If you like jugs, these and many, many more will be with me Potfest Suffolk, next weekend 7th-9th August, Haughley Park.

From the 88th Firing, photos by George Perry Pots - Before and after

55 hours of firing (and days of cooling) between the two. Lovely toasty and ashy front stack with an unfortunately cracked Gemma Smale piece and a Simon Horton jug.

I don’t have my work yet as I couldn’t make the unpack. I really can’t wait to see the work

If you want to learn to build one a little like this, then there are a few places left on our September course. Links are above, or find the booking/info page on our website: https://www.oxfordkilns.com/service-page/september-kiln-building-course?referral=service_list_widget

From the 88th firing of the anagama: pics by • George Perry Pots - Still thinking about our firing a couple of weeks back at Oxford Kilns. Fabulous crew put together by Simon Horton. A very peaceful week of packing, firing, eating and chatting at the wonderful Oxford kilns site. My first multi day wood firing and it shan’t be the last

Thanks to Oxford Kilns Simon Horton Ellie Perry Gemma Smale SW

New arrivals today on site. Thank you Annie for supervising them! If you look back a bit in our feed you’ll have seen us loading these bricks onto pallets last week at the pottery of Jonathan Garratt in Dorset. He’s very kindly donated these to us. Some were given him and made by Michael O’Brien and were in one of Jonathan’s previous kilns in the New Forest. These will go into the replacent kiln in September with Claude Aussage and Robin Alexander Wilson

☀️Down at the RCA in Battersea today to do my regular guest lecturer slot introducing woodfiring to the Glass and Ceramics students, who often then come over to Oxford later in the year to fire kilns, develop their practice, or conduct research. We’re currently hosting RCA Professor who amongst other things is looking at comparative carbon footprints of various kilns. He’s helped by Heather Gibson who was former RCA student and then technician, and now runs the big gas kiln County Hall Pottery; and we also have ekta bagri formerly Goldsmith’s, and then RCA Ceramics & Glass and now one of my DPhil students School of Archaeology, Oxford at Oxford. So this is a nice ongoing connection between and Royal College of Art

From the Fastfire kiln woodfiring vourse this weekend by • .torbicz • These vessels are coming from my very first firing with Oxford Kilns, which I attended this past weekend under the guidance of the brilliant Robin Alexander Wilson!
I am going to post more on this as soon as I have recuperated my strength, as it was an exhilarating, intensive, all-consuming experience.
These specific vessels were glazed with the Malcolm Davis Shino recipe and sprayed with a layer of ash glaze here and there. The round bottle has been glazed with a celadon glaze. We got up to 1320 degrees, and all these bottles were exposed to quite a lot of fire. They have all been thrown using wood-firing clay, which was an absolute joy to work with.
I have absolutely loved using our new spray booth over at Oval, courtesy of our lovely host Adrian Gonzalez!

This piece by• Simon Horton • Teapot, woodfired Oxford Kilns in early June