Organizers of The Firing While Female at East Creek Anagama in May of 2019 Mandy Stigant and Careen Stoll provide the following statement:
A few points of particular interest stand out about this wood firing. One is that we played the long game: we created a long flame early in the firing and maintained it for the duration. This was a patient way to provide even temperature to the whole kiln, and create rich reduction colors deep into the chamber. This long game strategy guided each shift to set up the next into a good position, a cooperative attitude that flavored the entire firing. From loading to food prep to troubleshooting to instructional asides, a remarkable quality of this firing was the spirit of equality. While we did have people in roles of leadership to make ultimate decisions and to delegate tasks, there was throughout the firing a sense that each person had valid experiences to contribute, and a voice to be heard.
The second point is the crew of women who pulled it off. The criteria for assembling this crew was less based on prior wood firing experience, and more on enthusiasm, work ethic, an ability to learn and work together with a team, and a sense of exploration. These traits shaped the whole experience, both in how the actual firing went and how we all worked together as a group. We enjoyed a rare kind of innocence: convening with open minds and clean slates, free of preconceived notions about one another or about the firing. Sharing such qualities enabled us to establish and then sustain a vibe of positive energy, community, work, effort, and a patience for process which was visibly evident in the results of the firing.
So many quick phrases come to mind when it comes to wood firing. It is hard. It is fun. It is engaging. It is performance. It is expensive, time consuming, exhausting, often frustrating, carries a steep learning curve and a high fatality rate (of work, not people). So why do we do it? Hold just one piece from this past firing, any piece, and you'll start to understand. Join a crew as dynamic as this one, and you'll get it in your guts. Appreciating wood firing comes from viscerally understanding the process via experience.
Wood firing is in itself a cultural experience. To call it social practice begs the question of who is artist and who is audience, but why try to make a distinction? The fact is that when we engage with the pieces that result, we experience waves of memories associated with their creation. Our judgements about what is beautiful or valuable are altered by our collaborative experience with each other and this ineffable collaborator, the kiln. The kiln actively altered the shape of so much of our work, pulling and biting at lips and eroding the surfaces, compelling the makers to let go of their expectations. If the pot is proxy for the maker, how altered is the maker by passing this trial by fire? Wood firing as social practice is as topical or personal as the maker chooses it to be.
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