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After 25 years + of wood firing the experience still seduces Nic , as it did early in his carreer as a potter. The build up to a firing takes some considerable planning: organising a firing crew , planning the shifts and firing the kiln to Nic`s latest ideas and theories concerning clay, fire, oxidation, reduction, cooling, ember beds, which wood to use, hard or soft?

Nic`s early experiences with wood firing tended to be just a convienient fuel to use as a fixative to turn my precious pots from mud to stone. From very simple sawdust-fired kilns to Nic`s present-day anagama kilns, each presented heartache and exiting surprises ! Amongst the disasters, even with the worst of firings, a jewel of a pot can be found, thus inspiring the next episode.

Quite often Nic will take a shard of a pot from the winter grass and will be inspired with new theories. Shards are excellent recorders of the fire, as Nic doesn`t get distracted by the form of the pot and is able to read the interaction between fire and clay. Very often the shard will be the influence for Nics next firing based on the latest theory.

So the cycle begins again: which clay to use, the form of the pots and how will the kiln be fired !

Every firing being a new journey into the unknown but yet the familiar. Maybe something like driving along a motorway, with each journey travelling a little further along, the motorway staying the same, but the scenery changing all the time; from sea, moorland, through to mountains.

Each firing gives a hint of what maybe going on within. But with that snippet of information opens endless avenues.