The moment of truth for a ceramicist is always the most exciting, the most nail biting and the most heart warming in the whole process of ceramic making. It’s a gift when it all goes well.
The moment a ceramicist opens a door to their kiln is the moment of truth. It’s also a moment of yet another great excitement. I imagine a writer feels like this when they see their published book. An athlete feels like this when they see the height of their jump. A mother feels like this when she sees her new born baby.
To a ceramicist every piece of ceramic they make is yet another baby they produced.
Opening a kiln is like looking that baby in the eye and feeling an unparalleled love.
It’s a moment of pride. A moment we want to shout- I made this!
From a lump of clay.
From mud!
From Earth.
In wood firing ceramics, the Earth is being kissed by the fire.
It’s a kiss of life.
Or death.
There was lots of kissing in our Ladies wood fire workshop in the heart of Croatian countryside, and just an hour’s drive from the Croatian capital Zagreb. Oblikovna Likovna Radionica Plemenitaš
We fed a large brick kiln with large logs for 27 hours straight. It exciting and physically exhausting.
What followed was 5 days of waiting for the kiln to cool down sufficiently enough to be unbricked.
The dream team and my teenage volunteer were hard at work again. The kiln door had to be removed brick by brick.
We couldn’t wait to unstack the kiln and everyone had a peek inside.
The moment of truth arrived and we were relieved.
We loved our results! We are proud mothers of our brand new ceramics babies.
I shall be showing my own larger pieces at different exhibitions of which the 1st one is by Croatian Cultural association
https://www.hrsk.hr/stranica2/english/2/28/0
and the two birds of Happiness, Vesna, the goddess of spring and Lucky are available for purchase here in the shop.