WOODLAND HILLS POTTERY | ANDES, NEW YORK

Kiln Openings

Twice a year I fire the kiln for forty hours, then wait a week to find out what I have.

THE OPENING

A firing runs forty hours. I feed the fire by hand the whole way — a piece of wood every ten or twenty minutes, day and night — until the kiln reaches 1,300°C and the ash moving through it melts to glass on the pots.

I control what I can. The front runs hot; the back fights me for every degree. A season of work is inside, and some of it won't survive the heat. That's the trade you make to fire with wood.

Then the kiln is bricked shut. For a week it cools, sealed, and the pieces wait. On opening day I take the brick door down by hand. Twenty years in, I still don't know what's under the ash until I lift it out.

The next firing

is in autumn.

The kiln opening follows

— Fall 2026.

Date: Sept 7th-9th, 2026

HOW IT WORKS

First look belongs to those on the list.

Each firing yields a small number of finished pieces, and not all of them survive the heat. The work is shown first to the people on the list below — they get the dates, and the first look, before anyone else.

Openings are by appointment, at the studio in Andes, New York. Once the dates are set, subscribers hear first and can arrange a time to come see and take home the work, still warm from the kilns fire.

Openings happen at the studio in Andes, by appointment — see the new work come out of the kiln, hold it, purchase directly.

If you'd like to know when the next opening is, the list is how I'll tell you.