– Creek Road Pottery LLC Newsletter – August 3rd, 2026 –
Hello from rural Pennsylvania, where the basement just got an unexpected mopping, fourteen mugs are sitting on a ware board waiting for handles, and the wood kiln arch is closer to its key brick than it has ever been. The last two weeks have been a reckoning of sorts. I got lost. I spent too long reading kiln textbooks, too long in my own head, and too long away from the wheel. The fall shows start this month, custom orders are waiting, and somewhere in the middle of all of it I picked up a pug mill from my old professor’s studio because a stroke took him away from the clay. That visit reminded me what urgency actually looks like, and it sent me back to the wheel with a different kind of purpose.
This newsletter covers the stretch from mid-July through August 3rd. The kiln build is progressing. The books have been read. The pots are finally being made again. The Dailies missed a few days and came back. The rain flooded the basement and we vacuumed up ten gallons of water and called it mopping. Here is the full report.
The Kiln Build
Ana’s arch is going up for the third and final time. The first two attempts were practice to confirm I had the correct bricks in the correct positions so the arch would tighten when the center key brick is placed in and tapped tight with a rubber mallet. The kiln books paid off, as they gave me tips and information I would not have had otherwise. Working near the top of the arch can be dangerous, climbing up and down the ladder handling nine-pound bricks while checking level and placing wood shims where needed. This whole project has taken three years from dismantling the kiln at the previous site to standing on a ladder mortaring bricks into the curve. With each row I lay in, I feel closer to finishing the most difficult part of the build.
Once the arch is done, the firebox roof goes on next. It is made of handmade tatami brick and will have six vent holes with plugs that I can open and close based on draft intake when firing wood and also to let out exhaust when using the firebox as a kiln. The kiln will be one of the few to have a firebox that also fires as a kiln. The chimney after that should be a straight build, twenty feet in height when I took it down, with draft ports and secondary air intake built in. Two side dampers will manage the gap between the ware chamber and chimney. Paid subscribers received a detailed technical post this month on arch construction, drawing from Frederick Olsen’s The Kiln Book, Émile Bourry’s 1911 treatise, Ann Stannard’s 1980 Bourry box firing account, and Will Ruggles’ 1992 Penland troubleshooting guide. The post covers bonded versus ring arches, mortar applied as a wedge, locking the key brick into compression, and thermal expansion rates during firing.
Reading Daniel Rhodes with Ana in Front of Me
I have been reading Daniel Rhodes’ Kilns with Ana in front of me, a chapter at a time, and I went in half expecting to find the places where my kiln was built wrong. What I found was closer to the opposite. Most of what the book taught me was already sitting in the bricks, put there by the two people who built her. Ana is all hard, dense firebrick. Compared to soft insulating brick, hard firebrick stores and loses somewhere around five times as much heat. That is why Ana might take twenty-six to twenty-eight hours to fire, as found in her past kiln logs.
Old is not the same as outdated. The people who wrote these old books are the source that the newer books still cite, and the newer authors mostly add their own firings on top of that same foundation. When I read the standard reference and found it agreeing with Matt and Nan at nearly every turn, that was proof the kiln was built by people who knew exactly what they were doing. Read the old books as a student, not an auditor. I finished Jack Troy’s Wood-Fired Stoneware and Porcelain during the stretch of hundred-degree days and have been working through Rhodes and Olsen since. From Troy’s bibliography I ordered the Rhodes book, and from Rhodes I am heading into Olsen. The books lead to more books, and the reading has become its own kind of obsession.
Fire Demands Respect
Subscribers received a long-form post this month on kiln safety that I am proud of. The piece covers everything from arch construction as a safety system to the realization that tired people make different decisions. A person who has been awake for eighteen hours does not think the same way they did after breakfast. That changed how I think about safety. Hydration becomes safety. Good meals become safety. Warm clothing becomes safety. Sleep becomes safety. A simple folding chair becomes safety. None of those things changes the temperature inside the kiln, yet every one of them changes the person tending it.
I also wrote about feeding stoking crews, which at first sounds unrelated to kiln safety but is not. As stoke intervals become shorter, preparing a hot meal becomes difficult. People grab protein bars, trail mix, and coffee because there is not enough time for much else. When Ana is rebuilt, I hope to build a small wood-fired bread and pizza oven nearby. At first I imagined it because it would be enjoyable. Now I think it may become another piece of the safety plan. Good food keeps people alert. It keeps spirits high. It reminds everyone that they are part of a team.
Lost in the Dark Wood
Somewhere in the last few weeks I got lost. Too much reading, too much focus on the kiln, and the pots stopped being made. The fall shows are approaching, custom orders are waiting, and the end of summer arrived faster than I expected. I missed writing the Dailies a few times, falling asleep at the keyboard after night shifts. It has become some type of obsession, the reading, and my downfall might be that I get too focused on one thing and everything else grinds to a halt.
The moment that turned it around was picking up a pug mill from my old professor, who is no longer able to make pots due to a stroke. He was the first to introduce me to clay. It was quite sad to disconnect and load everything up. His family is forced to sell off his studio. Maybe that is why I felt a sense of urgency to get back on some path and start making again. I also started rereading The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I sure love the way he writes. The dark wood does not last forever if you keep walking, and I walked back to the wheel.
Back on the Wheel
Fourteen mugs on a ware board. That is what finding the path back looks like. I worked my reclaim clay and threw a full ware board to get back in practice. They need handles in the morning. After that, another ware board of mugs, about twenty bowls, and then larger pieces like mixing bowls and baking dishes for the fall shows. In today’s throwing session I decided to have fun making pots rather than get stressed and worried about them. At times around shows I have a lot of anxiety about getting everything done on time. It might stem from the days when I had only one kiln and needed to plan everything to the hour. Now with three large Olympic updrafts, things move along more quickly.
It was raining almost the whole day, and then a huge downpour sent water into the basement. We vacuumed up about ten gallons and have the dehumidifiers running. Changing the negative to a positive, the floor needed mopping anyway. The kilns need test-firing before the shows to make sure mud daubers haven’t plugged up the gas lines, which can be a real headache. The making season is here. The reading was necessary and I am glad I did it. But the wheel is where the work lives, and the wheel is turning again.
Find the Work
The fall shows start this month with the Art of the Abingtons on August 15th and 16th in Clarks Summit, followed by the Harford Fair August 17th through 22nd. The making season is underway. If something catches your eye or you want to talk about getting into the studio, reach out directly. Thanks for reading. Thanks for being here.
Until next time,
Alford Wayman
Artist/ Owner
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