Don't Trust the Needle!

“Don’t trust the needle!”

This admonition is significant for potters.

Although ceramic art and production can be found throughout history wherever on earth one finds clay (which is just about everywhere!) the Chinese were the first to bring it to perfection.   Ceramic functional ware can be found as early as 9,500 BCE in China. The Koreans brought their expertise to pottery after periods of slavery to the Chinese.  The Japanese added their own brilliance to the craft appropriating it when they enslaved Koreans.   But the roots of Asian ceramic arts supremacy belong to China.

Using wood and coal as their primary source of fuel, Chinese kilns reached temperatures well over 2,000 degrees (F).  This allowed the development of fine porcelain clays and extraordinary glaze techniques in their ceramic production.   Pottery masters were able to judge the kiln’s temperature and atmosphere after years of patient observance.  The color and ‘life’ of a kiln’s flame could tell ancient potters all they needed to know about the stages of firing pottery pieces that were so strong they can still be viewed in museums today.

Potters use a variety of tools now to judge temperature and atmosphere in a kiln.  Computers analyze sensors instantly adjusting fuel and air ratios for the correct results.  Pyrometric cones of material formulated to melt at exact temperatures are placed throughout modern kilns to judge temperature, some placed in triggering devices to turn off kilns when the desired temperature is reached.   Pyrometric instruments read interior kiln temperatures through long probes that are wired to external monitors such as needle or digital displays.

Such technology is very helpful to modern industrial and artistic ceramicists, to be sure.   Yet for the contemporary art potter too much dependence on technology is not a good thing.  In our ‘screen centric culture’ it is all too easy for a potter to be transfixed to the display screen read-out via needle or number and lose touch with the firing itself.

In our recent wood firing at the Canyon Creek Ranch Pottery, the Pyrometric display registered one temperature while the Pyrometric cones below it were melting at a designated temperature 100 degrees more than the instrument’s ratings.  Fortunately our firing master checked both and found the discrepancy. If he hadn’t we could have fired that portion of the kiln so high as to run the glazes right off the pieces!  We yelled out together, ‘Don’t trust the needle!” even though the display we were using was digital!  We had learned this lesson many, many time previously in older kilns while using a needle display.

The greatest potters in history used experience, eyesight and intuition to calibrate their artistry with fire.  When we get too dependent on the display screen of our new technology we can forget that the process is all about paying attention to the process of transformation.