Many people ask us: if you have an electric kiln that fires pottery in hours, why keep the old kiln that takes three days? The answer is in this night we are telling you about.
When we light the traditional kiln, we do not leave it alone. One of us stays beside it, watching the fire and feeding it wood hour after hour. The night passes slowly, the embers glow, and we take turns staying awake as our fathers did, and their grandfathers before them.
The fire teaches us patience
In those long hours we remember the ones who taught us. We remember our grandfather saying that clay is not to be hurried, and that fire has its own time which we cannot shorten. The electric kiln is faster, but it does not give us this night.
We keep the old fire because it is not only a way of firing. It is what ties us to those who came before us.
And when the kiln is opened in the morning, and the pottery comes out having taken on its colour, we know the long night was worth it. Come on a day when we light the kiln, and you will understand why we do not give it up.