Pit Fire

“Because burning things is fun.”

April 7, 2024 *weather permitting. Alternative date: April 14

Two years isn’t our longest hiatus, but it’s long enough. Come and be pyros with us, or leave us with a piece or two to fire. The porous pot will absorb colors from the smoke and atmosphere, resulting in a completely unique finish, but also one that is not suitable for food. The best items are planters, nearly closed forms, and whatever else you don’t plan to eat off of. Smoother is better. Firing once is recommended because it’s a pretty harsh environment for the pots.

NO B-Mix unless you want to cry. For reals we’ve never had a piece that didn’t crack.

Check out our workshops below to prepare your pot. Or you can make one at home with a “mug” kit.

You can purchase Pit Pot kit or reference the video and instructions. Check out our video demo! to make a smooth, round pot. Or you can follow along with Teralta Art’s video making an olla.

More about Workshops:

Part I- Making the pot. We will construct a pinch pot and accompanying saggar, or two smaller pots. Each workshop spot is one ticket to the pit fire (tentatively April 7).

If you would like to bring your pot home from Part I, you can continue smoothing and burnishing the surface. Then bring it back to be fired by March 15, if you are participating in Part II, or April 3rd for the Pit Fire.

Part II- Saggar alternatives and decorating. We can attach many things to our pots before building them a cocoon. You might want to find a feather, leaf imprint, copper wire, or other materials to experiment with. Less is more, because if you have too much carbon your pot will end up mostly black. Unless... that is what you're going for and then you might want to think about terra sig or other things as a resist. Then we will wrap our pots in layers of slip and newspaper.

All pots will be fired once to alleviate breakage.