At breakfast there is a group meeting and Brandi Jackson, our senior poetry leader reads her journal and gives the first of her writing exercises to the group. She has asked students to take a five-minute walking meditation and list things they see in their surroundings before heading to the first assignments of the day. Later in the afternoon or evening, students will craft their lists into poems. Two of the groups head for the kiln site to continue stoking. The others head down to Ridgeway to learn about making felt hats. (View Image)
Since arrival at Penland, students have been fascinated with the llamas that roam the hillside below the Pines dining hall. This activity will enable them to see how fur can be processed and turned into wearable art. For felt making, we will be working with Merino wool, which is gathered from a particular variety of Sheep. (View Image)
Beth Allison, Penland's Textile studio coordinator and Kathy Barrows, a professional craftsperson and felt hat designer are our instructors. They share samples of Merino wool in the raw, combed and fully felted states. Each student works with a fluffy handful of combed wool, dips it in water and rolls it in her hands. Kathy explains that the heat generated from the friction of this gesture transforms the loose fibrous material into a durable felt ball about the size of a peach pit. Next, the process of hat making is introduced. Each student layers combed wool so the fibers cross and each layer runs perpendicular to the one beneath. These will be wrapped around a rubber ball in at least three directions. The balls are set in large bowls to steady them on the tables. Students then work in teams to stretch panty hose over the felt covered balls. This creates a barrier allowing the student to vigorously rub the wool with soapy water turning it into felt. (View Image)
Following this process, the panty hose are removed from the rubber balls and the felt forms are carefully removed, to be rolled again in sheets of woven bamboo. (View Image) This process wrings additional moisture out of the hats and continues to make them shrink. Once they have reduced in size to the diameter of each student's head, the hats are rinsed with a water and vinegar solution, which fixes the shrinking process. The final stage is to shape the hat with brims, ridges or creases. This is done by placing the felt on a sized hat maker's form and working it under a steam machine using one's hands.
Back at the kiln site, the teams continue to Stoke the bottom fire box. At about 1000 º F. clay and glazes begin to alter their molecular structures and the kiln's atmosphere glows a dull orange. This is a critical time of the firing known as quartz inversion. It is time to begin stoking wood into the next set of fire boxes integrated into the first of the ware chambers.
We are now feeding wood at three locations. As firing leaders, John Britt and Matt Pogtshnick take turns carefully watching the digital pyrometer for rising or stalling climbs of temperature. When the temperature stalls, it is time to stoke once again. We find that feeding too much wood at the bottom fire box where we started is now causing the kiln to lose temperature. To adjust, we are now feeding only two sticks at a time at this location to preheat the air that will combust the fuel in the firing chamber that is doing most of the work. Every five minutes or so, commands are called from the leader, “Stoke bottom two sticks! Stoke back side 5 sticks! Stoke front side 5 sticks! (View Image)
The pace continues through lunch and after the groups switch for the afternoon. The morning's hat makers are now at the kiln site and kiln workers are down at Ridgeway making felt. Late in the afternoon Big John and Polly from the kitchen send up supplies of egg rolls to feed the firers. As the day wears on a few are thrown into the fire box as an offering to the kiln gods and we joke with John Britt about a memoir on his life in wood firing entitled Four Sticks and a Pork Roll . As dinner approaches, the first firing chamber is reaching 2300° F, close to the maturation temperature of the glazes. By 7 p.m. the team moves on to stoke the fireboxes in the second chamber and finally the third. Each time, the pyrometer moves up the kiln along with the stoking. At its hottest point, the pyrometer has exceeded 2400° F. We assess the scene and realize we've burned about a cord-and-a-half of wood, a few slender sticks at a time. It's a marvel that so much energy and work has been generated from wood that might otherwise wind up in a dump.