1 -entree to the fire

Welcome to my sagger in the city blog - This is my journey into saggar firing, my diary and my learnings shared with you. I hope to share my processes, the mistakes, the experiments, the surprises, and of course the beauty using this old and ancient technique. Beware though, there will be some pretty hot, firey, smokey scenes. You might also be witness to a bit of dirt and ash and plenty of smooth moves and slippery surfaces all passionately applied. After all, this is about all things natural and raw, oxygen and carbon - the essential earthly elements of life - this is my sort of pottery!

But before we start - what is saggar?

The Oxford Dictionary defines saggar as “a protective fireclay box enclosing ceramic ware while it is being fired” - a mid-18th century word that is probably a contraction of the noun ‘safeguard’, which makes sense. Something I didn’t know though is that according to the Urban Dictionary a saggar is also “a young guy, usually a teenager, who wears his trousers down so low you can see much of his boxers. Often, he might identify as an indie punk skater.” I might not have much success stuffing him willingly into my kiln to protect my pots though, so we will go with the first definition.

And next, why saggar?

You can see from my work that I love the organic natural effects and varying surfaces that clay can achieve – my decoration / glazing style is quite minimalist – preferring to rely on the clay itself to ‘show off’. Sgraffito, with a limited colour palette, is probably the extent I go when it comes to detail or deliberate decoration.

Given this, it is not hard to see why I was blown away by my first experience with a Raku firing and the effects from techniques such as Obvara.

I now find myself scrolling through social media and becoming entranced and obsessed by other artists results and what they can achieve from these ancient firing techniques – this is my pottery porn! I am also a bit envious as they reveal their earthly creations, shovelling off the coals from fire pits or pulling out their creations from the red-hot raku kilns with tongs and fire gloves into the drums full of flames made from the natural combustibles they picked from their very own enchanted forest or remote natural eco bushland!

Which had me asking …. Can I do this? Can I do this at home? Living in the suburbs? Living in South Australia in the middle of a heat wave and severe fire restrictions. Without a raku kiln? Without a fire pit? With an little electric kiln? It didn’t seem like it would be a good idea to start a fire inside my kiln … but I could start a fire inside a closed pot inside my electric kiln and then I started researching …. what could possibly go wrong?

I do not have a shed or separate dedicated studio at home – But if you are an artist, you know that your entire house is potentially your studio! My work has encroached into every room of my house and my sister has joked that I might not be able to find my husband soon as he will be hidden under the pots.

My second-hand pottery wheel, (which my Dad lovingly repaired for me and painted a beautiful royal blue!), sits in the corner of my laundry.

It doesn’t have enough torque to really throw anything bigger than a noodle bowl, but it is perfect for making smaller creations and fantastic for trimming and decorating and I can chill out to the rhythmic sloshing sounds of my washing machine going next to me. But! …. As all potters know you do not need a lot of space to work as we have such an intense need to making things – so I could probably make something in the pantry cupboard if that was all the space I had.

My kiln lives in the carport / garage. It is a small ‘vintage’ Ward electric kiln I purchased second hand a year ago. Its internal dimensions are 30cmx30cmx30cm which has been perfect for bisque firing and low glaze firing – Max temperature is 1000 C - I tried firing to above 1100 C – but it tripped our house circuit – which made me not very popular with the ‘establishment’.

But, I am also so very fortunate to be part of a local pottery community through a small local studio which is no more than 5 minutes away. In Tea Tree Studio, I can grow my ideas, learn, and pass on my skills to others, grow and connect which is how all creations are conceived and happen …. And I can make my big, big, tall things like my bottles that will fit into our big kilns! We also have a new Raku Kiln which I hope to help to put into full use as soon as we are out of our extreme fire danger season!

But I think that is enough for now as in introduction … you will need to wait … in anti-ci-pa-tion to the next chapter of our saggar saga where we will be ‘slippin’ on our sig’