He calls his kiln the Golden Antelope. It is a two chamber wood burning kiln and is designed after the extended throat bourry box kilns described in Steve Harrison's book Laid Back Wood Firing. He describes the kiln as a double barrel snub nose train chamber in the front with a catenary in the back. The front chamber is nitty and gritty with a lot of ash and wood in direct contact with the pots, while the back chamber is essentially a reduction glaze chamber with some flashing. Guest Artists include: Steve Kearns, Candice Hensley, and Will Dickert

BRCC Anagama, built Summer of 2020, 40 cubic feet This kiln was designed with flexibility and simplicity of use in mind. It has a steeply stepped floor and a large firebox, so it may be fired fairly quickly if desired, or it may be fired over a long period for heavy ash deposits. The rolling flat lid allows loading from above and eliminates the hassle of stacking a brick door. It has tightly spaced grate bars, so raking and removing coals is not necessary (cutting, hauling, and splitting wood is a lot of work, so you might as well get the full use of your material.) During loading, the sidestoke port can be moved to any point along the length of the kiln. It steeply climbs from the front of the firebox so that flames are sucked into the kiln when stoking (it is more comfortable to stoke). As far as we know, this is the only top loading flat top Anagama in the world. The work in this kiln will do better with little to no glazing. You might use a liner glaze on pots toward the front. High iron glazes like tenmoku can pool in the bottom of pots to negative effect, so shinos are preferred. We try not to use copper glazes, since they can fume other pots in the kiln. Pots may be loaded in the firebox to get crunchy, crusty, bottom of the sea type effects. In the middle of the kiln we can expect heavy flowing ash drips, so round or ovoid vessels are preferred to take advantage of the effects. Large bowls take up quite a bit of space and catch so much ash that they are typically unusable. The rear of the kiln has a very fast draft, and tightly packed cups and mugs can have dramatic flame patterns. Guest Artists include: John Cummings, Preston Tolbert, Mary Cotterman, Douglas Caulfield

This 2 chamber anagama was built in 2021 for the ceramics program at UNC- Asheville.

The first chamber is approx. 150 cubic feet of firing space. The second, salt chamber is approx. 40 cubic feet.

This kiln was fired for the first time in early March for 87 hours with good success . We will be firing this kiln again during the Mountain preheat pre-conference.

This is a great opportunity experience this kind of wood firing. Donovan Palmquist will be leading this firing.

Temple (climbing or noborigama)

The Temple is a 3 chamber climbing kiln (noborigama) with 330 cubic ft. of total stacking space evenly divided amongst the 3 chambers. Designed in collaboration between Josh Copus and Will Ruggles, the Temple was built in 2007 and has been fired 38 times to date. Guest artists include: Gillian Doty, Kristen Easters, Tristan Glosby, Matt Weigleitner, Hanna Traynham, Erin-Rebecca Scott, Lindsay Bostic West, Iain Parrott, Molly Walters, Catherine White, Hamish Jackson, Denny Gerwin, Billy Ritter, James Kasper, Henry Crissman, Virginia Torrence

Land Shark (tube or anagama): 

The Land Shark is a 19 foot long tube kiln that is essentially half land and half shark… hence the name. It has 240 cubic feet of stacking space.  The whole ware platform is a flat floor from the firebox to the chimney so it is ideal for accommodating large work.  There are 4 side stoke channels over the length of the kiln that create lots of opportunities for ember contact throughout the whole kiln.  We generally actively fire for 72-80 hours so there is a fairly heavy amount of natural ash deposits, vapor glazing and other woodfire “effects”. Good for unglazed ceramics although it does have a lot of different zones, some of which are quiet.

Burrow (egg shape or anagama): 

The Burrow is a 13-foot long egg shape kiln that has 120 cubic feet of stacking space and is totally buried in a hillside.  It was inspired by historic kilns that were dug out of clay banks in hillsides.  It is an experimental kiln and this will be it’s first firing.  We plan to do a fairly fast active firing and a really long slow controlled cooling. Having never fired it, I don’t really know what to expect, although we hope to get minimal melted ash deposits and a really rich deep dark clay color.