A Kiln Of My Own

I had a birthday recently and the whole family pitched in to set up a ceramics studio for me.  It took a few weeks for the kiln to arrive, but guess who pulled up in the driveway today?

The driver was grouchy, but I was sure glad to see him!  There were two boxes: the little one on the left and the larger one being scanned in the picture on the right.  I opened the large box right there in the driveway, to make sure it had arrived safely.  The picture on the right (below) is the smaller box, which I opened later, in the living room.

My husband and I carried the boxes inside and carefully withdrew the contents.

My father's birthday gift to me was this beautiful Paragon Caldera Digital Kiln! (Thank you, Dad!)

My husband gifted me with a kiln shelf, which I forgot to photograph, and the contents of the smaller box, shown below.  Going clockwise, there is a bead rack, for firing glazed beads and pendants.  Next are a set of pyrometric cones which will help determine if the kiln is firing accurately or if I need to make adjustments.  Kiln wash is applied to the kiln shelves to help prevent any glaze drips from sticking to the kiln shelves.  The last picture just shows all the instruction manuals, that I now need to wade through.  But fortunately, Paragon has some good instructional videos on their website and YouTube has a lot of resources as well.

I have to apologize for the poor picture quality in the last two pictures.  For one thing the lighting was pretty dim, plus there was a lot of extraneous clutter around which I attempted to remove (not very successfully) via Photoshop. My daughter and her boyfriend gifted me with the inspirational and instructional material on the top photo below.  Reading these magazines and books helped me bide my time while I was waiting for the kiln to arrive.  I'll be referring to them often for inspiration and new ideas. My daughter gave me the cool stamp, with the interchangeable caps that you can see in the bottom picture on the far right.  They are the perfect size for adding textures to earrings.  My husband gave me a gift certificate to a local ceramic supply store where bought several glazes, (though I just included one in the picture), the texture rolling tool with interchangeable textures, a pony roller and a cutting tool. (Many thanks to Naomi, Vann & my DH!).

I will do a test firing this weekend and then I'm off and running.  I'll keep you posted!

-Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry