Michael Schwartz

Pit Fired Ceramics

First, each piece is carefully thrown on the potter’s wheel. When leather hard, it is trimmed and burnished to a soft luster with a smooth stone.

After leather hard gives way to bone dry, the work is kiln fired to 1800F. The heat increases the clay’s strength but leaves it porous enough to accept color into its body. Some areas of the now cooled form are covered with copper or steel mesh and then the entire piece is dabbed with copper carbonate, etchant (A solution of ferric chloride in hydrochloric acid) and rock salts. Recently, another step has been added to the process…before entering the pit, each piece is wrapped in a triple layer of heavy duty aluminum foil. This holds the fumes close to the piece’s surface in a reduced oxygen atmosphere. The result is striking intensification of color.

The piece is then placed in a pit, buried in wood shavings and scrap wood, set ablaze and left to smolder overnight, as was (and still is) done by Indians in the American Southwest.

The next day is a cross between gift opening and archeology when I see what has come from the ground. The pieces are washed, allowed to dry, then rubbed with wax to return the burnished surface’s satiny sheen.

What you see before you is due to the interaction of fire and smoke on salts and metals. No glaze has been used. Each piece is one of a kind…a work of art with its blacks, grays, greens, reds. This work is not meant to be eaten from and because of its porous nature will not hold water. Its purpose is to feed the eye and the spirit.