The Sawmill and the Pottery

It was a fine spring day. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the trees were showing their colors. From the storage shed came sounds of brick clinking on brick, and there, moving with purpose and the new energy of spring, was the lonely potter, building... something.

Firebricks were stacked about three feet high on each side of a square. This was obviously something to do with pottery, but it was different from the raku kilns I had seen him make. There was no hole at the bottom to insert a propane torch.

Mystified, I asked what he was building. He looked over at me, and without pausing in his work,  "Sawdust kiln", he said shortly, as if anyone with eyes could figure that out.

"Ahh" I thought, "So that's a sawdust kiln.

Not far away from where he was working there is a large, and growing, pile of sawdust. There are only so many things one can do with sawdust. Mulching the garden with it could use it up, but the Fire-smart experts  suggest that this mulch could become a hazard if a forest fire ever came our way. One could press it into moulds (like egg cartons) with a little paraffin wax, and have handy, dandy fire starters for winter. But really, how much of these things could we store before they too became a fire hazard?

So There it sits, a big yellow pile, waiting to be burned to make beautiful pots.

Behind the sawdust pile is the saw that created the sawdust. It was used to  saw all of the lumber that was used to build the pottery studio and the shed under which the sawdust kiln now sits.  So, if there was no sawmill, there would be no studio, no kiln, and no pottery.  There are still many trees to be cut into lumber, which will be used for fences, shelves, more buildings, and what ever else we may need as time goes on. This means, of course, that the sawdust pile will continue to grow, which means, I hope, that more pottery will be fired in the sawdust kiln.

I don't know anything about firing pottery, but I do know that the lonely potter has been wanting to try this method of firing for many years. Now, finally, all the elements needed to make this happen have come together, and there is a spark of excitement in the pottery studio. That's not to say that other things won't get in the way of the magic - things like sawing lumber and walking dogs - but it feels like a corner has been turned. Someday these pages will be filled, not with stories about the struggle to make  pottery, but with pictures of the pottery itself. Then I will know that the lonely potter has found his way again.