I have a plan to place my unfired pottery in a heat-resistant cage, attach that to a heat-resistant balloon, and fly it out of the Earth's atmosphere and back, eliminating my need for a kiln on Earth. The sun has some 10,000° F on it's surface and I need just about 2,300° F. The heat-resistant cage is finished, however, I'm outsourcing the balloon project to China, and they will not have it complete until next year. My patience is dwindling. This is a firing week actually, which equates to lots and lots and lots of hours of work being subjected to the test of intense heat. The idea is to bring the porcelain to a temperature just short of structural collapse, then shutting the kiln off, reducing the temperature gradually. This is a potentially rewarding time but also a very emotional one, due to expected and unexpected outcomes. Sometimes I want to leave my pieces on the studio shelf unfired, for fear of what might happen to them in the kiln. Next week's blog entry will highlight the porcelains from beyond the circular glare of image #1, if anything survives.

Image #1 illustrates the 'spy hole' (a small hole in the front of the kiln, allowing you to see inside) of my kiln at peak temperature. Image #2 is simply an amateur photo that NASA took of the Sun.