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Firing away at the CCHS studio

  • Sara Martin, left, and teacher Brian Bohlen arrange the firewood for lighting as Martin’s classmates wait to see the blaze begin. Press photos by Kate Hayden

  • James Fox tends to the fire as classmates watch the blaze take over the pit behind the Charles City High School.

  • Hannah Meighan buries her pottery under a solid layer of sawdust on Tuesday.

  • From left: Alyssa Singleton, Brianna Carey and Laquita Blackman bury their classmates’ projects.

By Kate Hayden | khayden@charlescitypress.com

Patience is the key when burying artwork in a pit.

That was one lesson for Charles City High School students in the newest Primitive Pottery class, led by studio arts teacher Brian Bohlen.

Once students had made their latest creation, Bohlen and his class trucked the fifteen or so pieces out behind the high school where a small fire pit was ready for them. After filling their projects with sawdust, the clay pottery was buried in more sawdust, with newspapers, cardboard and a woodpile stacked on top.

Pit firing is as much a game of chance as it is technique. Students brought in natural colorants like copper, coffee or leaves to bury in and around their projects, with only a vague guess as to what the final project will look like on Wednesday.

“It’s all about the chemicals in the pit and how things react,” Bohlen said as his class watched the woodfire slowly brighten on Tuesday. “You don’t know how they’ll turn out until tomorrow morning.”

It’s the first year Bohlen has offered the course, and he has a few other techniques on the schedule for his students to explore, like raku and gas firing. It’ll be a matter of experimenting for his students –– Bohlen himself doesn’t always know how the pieces will turn out.

“It’s going to be interesting with chemical reactions and the different ingredients, just to see what worked and what didn’t work,” Bohlen said.

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