Here at Gardner-Webb University we have been experimenting with salt for about 2 semesters. After a few firings we began to notice a pattern; only a few spots in the kiln were getting sufficient amounts of salt. The kiln that we use is a gas kiln and has never had much consistency. There have only been a small number of pots to come out of that kiln with the intended color and texture.

Pottery takes practice and when you begin to pursue it seriously, you realize just how much practice it takes. Not only can one forever improve throwing techniques, there is an infinite list of glaze possibilities and firing techniques. This problem with the kiln may just mean that we need more practice firing. Maybe we just need to get to a point where we can read the kiln and know exactly how much hotter or cooler it needs to be at any given point. But what if that is not the case. What if it is not us but the kiln that is flawed.

Gas kilns are much more involved than electric kilns. With electric kilns, you can program the firing and then leave it alone all night and go to sleep. With gas kilns, everything is manual. If you have to fire a load for 16 hours then you have to be there for all of those 16 hours. The problem is, if you spend 16 hours of your week watching a kiln, you want your pots to come out incredible…this is not always the case. So my question is, is it more artistic to work really hard and get one great pot out of a gas kiln than not working so hard and getting a lot of great pots from an electric kiln? Who knows? But you cannot open up an electric kiln and pour pound after pound of salt in. Since salt is what we are going for, I guess gas is the only way to get there for now.