Cooking in pottery over coals

There has been some discussion on ClayArt recently about how pottery was used on fires in history for cooking. These are some pictures of how my friends and I cook in pots on coals now days. In general this is done for a reenactment group, but often just because it is fun to do and with no costumes involved. These pots are made of cone 6 clay, but I usually fire them at about cone 4.

Supper tonight. Chicken, garlic, and cilantro stew, the ingredients are all in the pot, which is being eased into the coals. The pot gets turned regularly to keep the heat even.

This particular shape was called a pipkin in the West. I saw the same style vessel in the Field Museum in Chicago from ancient China. I glazed the interior of this pot but didn't glaze the exterior to emphasize the red clay. The stew is now simmering in this picture. I kept it simmering for about 3 & 1/2 hours.

Pottery is very efficient. To keep the stew simmering, it only needs a coal under it. Not all pipkins had such long legs, but I like the long legs to slide coals under and for balance because my brazier is dished out at an angle. I use a bellows for the coals, which is why ash is on the pot.

My friend is making cheese in a pipkin over a campfire rather than in a brazier. She says she appreciates how much easier it is to clean glazed pottery than any other kind of camping pots. In the upper left hand corner a simpler cooking pot is heating water. Fat is being rendered in the iron pot.

In this photo pork is seared for a pork-asiago cheese dish in the yellow & green pipkin. The smaller pot with the mismatched lid behind simmering behind the pork is rice. The rice cooked very well, the grains stayed separate and fluffy.

Here is another friend cooking a pork roast in his pipkin. This time using a flat bottomed brazier. Again you can see how few coals are needed for cooking in ceramics. This is the same pot that was used for making cheese in the photograph above.

Designs with the Celtic Motif

I have had some people ask about some of the Celtic Designs I put on my pottery. All of these designs are inspired by the ancient art of the Celts, Picts, and Norse. During their eras, their art was incised or painted on various crafts such as wood work, metal work, and on illuminated manuscripts. I take the basic design and alter it to fit on my ceramic pieces in ways that, although they were not done exactly like mine in history, enhance and beautify the ceramics on which they reside.
Although I don't know for certain, I believe I was the first person in the U.S. to put Celtic Knotwork on my pottery as surface design.

This design of a hunting Celtic Cat has been very popular.


This Celtic Horse was originally part of a manuscript.


This knotted up creature is of a Norse Design.


Leaping Celtic Stag on a mug



Occasionally I also do humans. This Irish Warrior is dressed all in plaid. Plaids were bright, (what we would consider) mismatched, and popular with Ancient Celts.


This is a large platter with a Celtic bird. The bird "may" have been representative of a peacock.


This is a running Celtic Dog, the knotwork is swirling about him.

Furniture! made of clay

The local branch of the Women's Art Caucus issued a challenge for its members. The plan is to do a work of art with the theme of a chair. We will then hold a show this summer called, of course "Madame Chair". There will probably be some wonderfully painted chairs and sculptures using chairs as armatures. Since I love the use of clay, I decided to make clay garden stools.

This stool is about 15 & 1/2 inches tall. It will shrink by the final firing of course. The carving is inspired by a French Medieval Jug. However, the overall shape and design together remind me of African art.

This stool was inspired by my daughter, who eats, drinks, and sleeps dance. It is about 17" tall.
The Orange line was drawn with acrylic paint to give me a guideline when I do the carving. The orange line will burn out in the first firing.

A close up of the carving, I still have some finishing work to do on it or so it appears.

Because they are intended to be used and sat upon I made them thick. They used a lot of clay and it is difficult to move them from place to place. Even moving them off the wheel head was a big production. Lowering them into my big oval kiln will require help. The assistance of more than one person in addition to myself will be required. Drying time will also be a challenge, I am not certain they will be completed by the due date. Clay work takes time.

Not exactly bone china

This bowl set was made for my son, who likes skulls.

I purposefully chose the glaze of this luscious green because using black, or even white would have been too "typical.

It's fun to try some different themes. Quite a few people have expressed interest in this set so I will be making some more.

Empty Bowls, 2009

An activity that the Palouse Studio Potters do almost every year is Empty Bowls, and it is an event I really look forward to. The past two years I held small workshops where I invited friends to paint underglazes on bisqued bowls I made and donate them to the Empty Bowls. This has been a very enjoyable and worthwhile activity. The participants have a good time and have come up with wonderful results:

This bowl is by Rafaella, she is interested in learning more about maiolica. So rather than painting with underglazes directly on the bisqued bowl, I mixed a cone 6 maiolica glaze (Roy & Hesselbreth) for her to paint the glazes on top of to get that thick white background.

The delicate decorations on this bowl were painted by Tammy. She took hours to accomplish this look. She judged distances and sizes just by looking carefully.

The exterior of Daedin's bowl was inspired by Italian Renaissance Drug Jars. It looks great on bowls too. A strong design lasts through the ages.

A bowl painted by my talented son Gavin. He is a painting major in college, but this is his first use of underglazes as a medium.

A different application for me. Empty Bowls donations are a great place to experiment.

Another of my underglaze bowls. This one is also rooted in Middle Eastern ceramic design.

Sagger barrel firing

This was my first sagger firing vase, two out of six came out without breaking. The colors on this are amazing considering there is no glaze used. The colors come from the chemicals placed in the saggar barrel. The black squiggles are from horsehair burns.

More horsehair squiggles show on this pot. It was not wrapped in aluminum foil like the red pot, so the mark of smoke is more apparent.

There is a story to this firing:

On March 1st. some other potters and I went to friend Judith's home and studio to do a sagger/barrel firing. Now, I've done plenty of pit firings, but not this. Saggers are similar to pit firings, low-temperature bisqued pots are used, most of the time terra sigilatta is applied to the bisqued pots, and finally they burn wood as in a campfire so they don't get very hot. Some of the differences, however are the other materials added to the sagger which render them non-functional, but with great and unusual surface color.

This is the vase shown in the first photo before firing.
It has been painted with ferric chloride, sprinkled with sea salt, and had a few horse hairs placed on it. It will be loosely wrapped with the aluminum foil it is sitting on and placed in the barrel.



Pots are carefully placed in the "high-tech kiln". One of the guild members is adding dried banana peels to the mix. The blue substance is Miracle Gro. The amphorae are mine.

Here it is burning. It was a cold, wet day as can be judged by the snow still on the ground.

At this point the coals were glowing, I leaned in to place horsehair on the pots. Horsehair immediately burns leaving interesting carbon squiggles on the pots. These marks are permanent.

Alas, this kind of firing is hard on the pots, here are two that broke. I had great hopes for the amphora.

Some pottery for March

I've been working on pottery that I will have at AnTir's Kingdom Arts and Sciences event, March 7-8th, 2009. I'm going to have a merchant's table there and hope to also have some of the pottery of my friends Gwen the Potter and blown glass pieces by Aelfgu.

The following pottery pieces are some of my most recent work out of the kiln.

I particularly like this jug. The soft colors are unusual and came out very successfully. The herringbone carved design is French in origin.

This pitcher-type is a very different style from the green and yellow baluster jug above. My spouted pouring vessels like this can also be used on direct heat.

I tried a few different things with this saucepan. It's thrown out of earthenware clay rather than stone ware and it's fired to a lower temperature more like period pottery. Unlike period pottery it has a food safe glaze that I formulated, and then again like period pottery for color I sprinkled some copper filings on the wet glaze to get that green speckle you see.

This pot is also intended for cooking in coals.

A simple cooking pot. Well, it should have been simple, but I couldn't resist carving some surface design on the pot. This will help the user hold onto it when it gets wet too.