As a young art student who was first romanced at the age of nineteen by the alchemy of wood firing, I realized pretty quickly I couldn’t afford to build a kiln, let alone pay someone to build it for me. Thus began my obsessive search for salvaged refractory, and my self-propelled education in kiln building.
In the late nineties, as a student at Kootenay School of the Arts (KSA) in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, I was offered my first taste of what was involved in the design and construction of kilns as part of their three-year ceramics diploma program. At that time, I didn’t know of any educational institutional programs that offered specific kiln-building knowledge beyond an introductory course.
I actually left the institutional system after two years to pursue more practical or applied knowledge. My journeyman period was long and diverse and involved multiple apprenticeships, travelling to attend conferences, connecting with other woodfire potters, firing kilns, and building kilns; if it was related to atmospheric firing, I would do everything I could to be there. It was my top priority.
