aganama kiln

Today I took the kids out to the UW Waukesha Field Station to see visit the Aganama kiln that students from UWM and UW Waukesha were firing this week. For those of you who don't know what makes an Aganama Kiln unique please refer to this. The students have been cutting/splitting wood for weeks leading up to the firing and they have now been stoking the fire for several days. We made it out just in time to see the last stoking and then the kiln was sealed up. The almost twenty year old kiln is currently packed with over 1000 pieces of work and it will be opened in a week so that the work can be removed. As noted in the linked article, Christopher Davis-Benavides and Jeff Noska built the unique kiln and the structure that protects it. They have been keeping temperature records each year since the kiln was built and they can track it's temps down to the hour. I've worked with Chris and Karen Gunderman for the last ten years and they have studios down the hall from me. They have been telling me how I need to come out and visit for years and I finally made it out. It was on my list of things to do before we leave WI so the kids and I made the trip out; and we were so glad we did! We'll have to go next week when they open the kiln up. We can't wait...