Amir, Keeper of the Kiln
Photo: Courtney Cook / Unsplash
This is an illustrative story. Names and some details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people we work with.
Firing is where pottery becomes permanent — and where weeks of work can be lost in a moment if something goes wrong. It takes a calm, methodical person to run a kiln. Amir is exactly that.
He learned the craft slowly, because there is no rushing it. He came to understand how heat moves through a loaded kiln, why pieces are stacked just so, how a firing must be brought up and cooled down in patient stages. He keeps a logbook of every firing, each one signed off in his neat handwriting.
“When I open the kiln in the morning and everything has come through perfectly,” he says, “that is the best feeling in the world. All those hands — and the last bit of trust is given to me.”
