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A Winter of Woodfiring

This winter SSW has been expanding its outdoor wood firing offer with artists from across the UK and Europe. Amy Benzie, SSW’s Ceramics Technician, writes below about her experiences firing with wood and working with the artists.

Words and images by Amy Benzie

I have always been fascinated by clay and the way it takes me to new experiences and to new people. This winter of woodfiring at SSW was no different. I was so heartened to be joined by artists at the workshop with whom I could share and further our collective learning around the possibilities of woodfiring and push what this looks like here in Lumsden.

In my first month working at SSW I had woodfiring on the brain. I had just spent a whirlwind week at the International Ceramics Festival, followed by heading out to Norway to assist a team firing the Kjaerrahvalen (literally ‘whale-kiln’) for 5 days of stoking the fire and camping. I then headed straight into the Summer Camp with MyVillages at the Workshop. Here, amongst many other activities, we were encouraged to imagine an object that could represent the SSW. A wood fired kiln seemed to me an obvious choice – an object that encouraged communal activity and that counted on intuition and sharing knowledge. Matt Wilcock had earlier converted an old frontloader electric kiln into a woodfired kiln just before I came to the workshop, firing it to earthenware temperatures. I was excited to try it out.

Now we are in the beginning of 2025, and I remember how this winter was welcomed with a Samhain woodfiring in our yard. A giant, naked goddess poured flames from her head whilst a team of us tended her, stoking wood into each of her legs. This was the culmination of a 5 day long intensive course on sculptural kiln building and woodfiring led by artist Jenny McKenzie Ross of Northshore Pottery where she generously shared her wealth of knowledge and experience. Jenny regularly fires her cross-draught, woodfired salt kiln in Caithness, and has built sculptural cob kilns for a range of festivals and events – including a bottle ‘cairn’ kiln, and a multi-chamber kiln that climbs the hill behind her pottery. 

During this course, we were all able to learn from an artist who boldly plays with what a kiln could be. Once everyone was settled in, they were immediately warmly welcomed into Jenny’s world. We were shown a sketch of the kiln we were all going to realise together: a woman sat, holding her knee. Each leg a firebox to stoke wood, leading into the main chamber, her belly, where pots would nestle, reaching into the neck and head which would act as a chimney. And if this wasn’t ambitious enough we planned to test out having the knee as a secondary mini chamber for pots, with the arm extending from it into the main chimney. How would this extra funnel change the behaviour of the kiln we thought?

Pots were glazed, wadded and packed into a willow former atop a carefully constructed base of firebricks and fire bars. The group created cob bricks from a mix of fireclay, studio slops and hay and built around the former over three days, breaking regularly to allow the clay to firm and hold its shape before adding more weight. When lit the hay would burn away, leaving the aerated clay and making      the perfect insulating brick. 

In the evenings we shared meals, Jenny generously presented images of her work, past kilns and the building of her pottery studio. We were introduced to and taken through the Kiln Book by Fred Olson, and given the opportunity to make our own catenary arch formers, as was used to build the self supporting firebox legs. All the while Ruaridh Allen, our Technical Manager here at SSW was tirelessly chopping and prepping a huge stock of wood for the firing. 

From 6am on Samhain Eve the kiln was given a last dry off with the gas burner, and by 9am we together lit the fire. With multiple fireboxes, everyone on the course was able to have a good chunk of time stoking, finding the rhythm of the kiln and slowly building the temperature. By evening time the goddess was glowing. The team learned how to monitor cones to gauge the heatwork inside the kiln and its effects on the glazes and clay inside. When hot enough, we added soda into the kiln – volatising in the heat, fluxing the clay surfaces giving a dramatic effect.


Draw rings had been placed in the chest of the kiln. These were carefully hooked out when red hot, and when cool gave us a visual guide as to when to stop adding salt. Midnight came, Cone 8 had gone and we closed her up.

On the final day of the course we excavated the kiln, taking her to pieces to reveal a trove of pots inside. Nobody could resist the ‘oohs and ahhhs’ as piece by piece was handed down the conveyor belt of hands from the kiln to the table. As a team we were able to assess what worked and any things we would change if we were to build her again. 

To see the entire process –  from the first brick laid, to deconstructing the kiln and witnessing the transformation of the materials inside –  really cemented my understanding of the nuances of atmospheric firing. 

We all left with the buzz of possibility.

The following month Lillann Ulverud, member of the Kjaerrahvalen Anagama firing team, came pn residency at the workshop. Her goal was to adapt our kiln for firing to stoneware temperatures and develop new work to share in Scotland. To do this she drew on her many years of experience in kiln building and firing internationally. 

The kiln was given a new door and an extension to the chimney to increase draw. The packing of the kiln was planned meticulously to consider how the flames and heat might travel through the wares to the flue and a day was dedicated to completing this. We experimented with placing objects in the chimney and again Ruaridh got us well prepped with wood whilst Lillann worked hard to create work to fill the kiln. Other artists in residence Rebecca Rae and Morven Mulgrew added pieces of their own and were drawn into the magic of wood firing. 

This firing was mostly raw (meaning some of the pots had not been through the initial bisc firing), which we kept in mind whilst firing. After a couple of false starts, we lit the kiln in the early hours of the morning and gently let the temperature rise at roughly 100 degrees an hour. Our new chimney was now fitted with a damper which we could use to alter the atmosphere within the kiln and we could experiment with seeing how this effected progress. As the night went on, the climb slowed and we learned how the kiln behaved as it got into temperatures over earthenware. We then tried out variations of rhythms and ways of stoking to learn what this kiln seemed to like.

We fired until the following morning. Cone 10 was just beginning to get soft, and we were just about through the wood. We closed down and rested until the kiln was cool enough to empty. Again, seeing the results gave a lot of learning opportunities for how to approach the next firing. 

Lillann generously shared the outcome of her the firing at our November Clay Social, alongside awe-inspiring photographs of the Norwegian whale kiln. The work from this firing also formed part of a group exhibition ‘Norwegian Wood’ in the Scottish Ceramics Gallery, Aberdeen.

I am so grateful to everyone who visited the workshop and gave so much to our winter of woodfiring. I am so excited to continue building on what we have learned, invite new people into the world of wood firing and develop and nurture future opportunities for skill sharing and discovery.

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