All Fired Up
The kiln room in SMFA’s Ceramics Studio is wonderfully cluttered with racks containing hundreds of student works waiting to be glazed in smaller-sized kilns. But there is currently a gaping space where Rolly, its legendary gas-powered, large format kiln was once fired up. Unfortunately, Rolly became too old and unsafe to use more than five years ago.
As a result, students like Guadalupe (Louisa) Najar, BFA '24, have had to either limit the scale of their imagination or develop clever workarounds for large-scale projects. Louisa’s senior thesis project involved firing a galloping four-foot-tall stallion in three distinct parts and then attempting to fuse the sections along the animal's neck and muscular flank.
Thanks to the remarkable anonymous six-figure gift of a new kiln, the potential for what can be sculpted, thrown, glazed, or fired at SMFA is about to become boundless. The state-of-the-art computer-operated, large-scale kiln is being custom-built for SMFA in California and will be installed and ready for students in Fall 2024.
Rolly was fired by gas, which is temperamental to control, particularly in the glaze fire stage, but the new kiln boasts more recent technological advances and will be controllable by computer.
Professor of the Practice Michael Barsanti explains, “The first firing after making works in clay is called the bisque firing. The temperature must stay under 212 degrees fahrenheit for anywhere from one to twenty four hours, depending on the thickness of the clay, in order to avoid turning the water to steam, which can cause the clay to explode.”
Gas kilns are notorious for having such a large area that it's hard to control the temperature in an even way. It's important for students to know the chemistry involved in firing and glazing work in an manual kiln. Yet, giving them the experience of working with the latest technology available in a computer-operated kiln will add to their skillset as artists.
Barsanti says, "I tell our students that the goal is to get them to understand the material and the equipment so well that if they enter any community ceramics studio after SMFA, they will be a valued member because they understand the process and the equipment."
The new kiln will more accurately regulate temperature. It is also being custom-built in two sections to fit the space constraints of SMFA’s hallways perfectly. "Imagining the installation has kept me up at night," Barsanti admits, laughing. "I don't want to be the Bug Man in Men in Black who realizes his spaceship doesn't fit in the truck."
He knows something about building kilns—he and a friend built Rolly. SMFA legend has it that the old kiln was made from parts donated by local arms manufacturer Raytheon. Barsanti confirms this controversial past to be true. Everyone agrees that a new kiln with less political origins will be an improvement.
The new kiln came about from far less controversial means. Professor of the Practice Jennie Jieun Lee, who sits on the SMFA Facilities and Tech Committee, was scrambling to put together "a realizable budget" for acquiring a new kiln when an anonymous donor made the transformative gift.
Lee, who received a Studio Diploma from SMFA in 1991, says that as a student, using the kiln and working in community with other students to load and unload work drew her to the medium. "I still remember falling in love with clay in this studio," she says. It's a full-circle moment for her to now pass along her knowledge of the medium and that "culture of comradery in ceramics" to students—including how to operate the new kiln.
Once a piece is placed in the kiln, an artist has to give up a certain degree of control. Work can crack and glazes can come out oddly, among other hazards. Lee sees this as a metaphor for life and art. She says, "I always tell students that ceramics is about failure and to embrace it. You cannot get to a masterpiece without failing sometimes."
Professor of the Practice and SMFA alumna Cathy Lu, BFA+BA ‘07, gestures towards the buzzing Ceramics studios and says, "Our classes are so popular that there is a waitlist." She and Lee launched a student-led group called Clay Club last year to give everyone the chance to get hands-on experience in the medium.
Not only will the kiln enable students and club members to make bigger work using the latest advancements, but it will also allow even more SMFA artists to work in the ceramics medium each semester.
Lee says, "I'm excited for the kiln room to be filled with something big and tall that can fire so many works simultaneously. Thanks to this wonderful gift, this is possible."
Image: Courtesy of Professor of the Practice Jennie Jieun Lee