February 11, 2012: What's Cookin' at Peters Valley?

If I could choose to teach something other than biology it would be.... ART :) (actually it would be cool to teach an alternative Phys Ed class... like kickboxing, Jiu Jitsu or Yoga or something too). Anyway, my secret desire to teach, well... everything... leads me to wonder around the building incessantly looking for cool stuff that's going on (and trust me there is quite a bit when you look for it!). Point is, during one of my escapades, I became aware that the ceramics teachers and students go to Peters Valley Craft Center twice a year. This is very exciting news because I basically grew up at Peters Valley, because my mom was the director there for many years. I have always wanted to visit the RHS group while they were there but for whatever reason... I had not gotten the chance... until today! 

The RHS group had worked for months making pieces to fire in the wood fire kiln at PV. The process of firing the kiln is very labor intensive. But, I will say that the RHS team was so good that they were actually finished by the time I got there! They had been stoking the kiln around the clock, taking shifts during the day and over night to get the kiln to a certain temperature and then maintain that temperature. The temperature of the firing is crucial to the success of the firing. As I am writing this I am trying to look for more information to share with you about the actual process. While I thought I learned quite a bit... I am realizing that it is not enough. (I am going to talk to the ceramics teacher and the students to gather some more information and then edit... so stay tuned!)

But I would like to share that the ceramics teacher and I did bounce around some cross-curricular ideas such as:

Science: 1) the firing temperature and the reaction of glazes, etc 2) the clay itself - origin/composition/ geology/mineralogy/etc

Social Studies: 1) the history of wood fire (Asian roots of wood fire ceramics), 2) historical significance of clay 3) the history of Peter's Valley and the Tock's Island Dam Project - eminent domain, etc. 

The list is still growing but there is quite a bit of potential here!

Peters Valley is also home to an Anagama kiln, which is a Japanese word meaning "cave kiln." The Anagama is a long kiln that is built into the side of a hill at PV. It is fired once or twice a year and is a huge production. I remember being little and throwing a piece on the kick-wheel just to put in the Anagama. Then, when it was time to load the kiln I would get to walk in the kiln and up the steps to put my piece inside. It was exciting. The placement of the pieces in the Anagama effects how the piece will look after being fired. This is because the flame will take different paths depending on the placement of the pieces. The fire is stoked at the bottom of the kiln and there is a flue at the other end, causing the flames and smoke to take a path upward through the kiln, passing over the pieces of pottery. This causes an unpredictable pattern and sometimes color to appear on the pieces... which is why it is so exciting to take the pieces out after it cools down! The Anagama is stoked 24 hours a day for several days before firing is finished. Everyone anxiously awaits the opening. 

What the RHS group did is similar to the firing of the Anagama but I would love to get more detail from them about their process and maybe share some pictures of their work. Meanwhile... perhaps I will share this picture of me on a swing when I visited the RHS group at PV.