An obvious downside to autodidacticism is the probability of making a slew of mistakes. Some tiny and barely noticeable but to a trained eye. Others, screaming catastrophic fuckups that render one’s soul and workspace unstable. Both sorts can happen, and do, even if you’re watching out for them. Case in point, a recent firing that resulted in not one or two, but fivepieces melting onto the kiln shelves. One of these involved so much glaze that the kin shelf split in half when I tried to remove the offending vase. Another resulted in a divot that almost certainly will not survive more than one or two additional firings. This experience, while not of that latter category is well on its way.

What went wrong? Let’s do an after-action report, shall we? 1. new glaze, 2. new glaze poorly applied, 3. new glaze that I hadn’t tested—as One Should—before using on real pieces, 4. new kiln wash, 5. new kiln wash poorly applied, 6. new kiln, 7. an over-abundance of optimism, 8. an over-abundance of confidence, 9. a belief that even if everything did go to hell, it would be easy to fix, and finally, 10. what do I know? 

Every single item—some singularly, some collectively—are a known issue. Nothing I didn’t do or did do was a mystery or an unknown. There is lore around this stuff. And yet…

Still, though, nobody died and so I get to chalk it up to a ‘learning experience.’ And it was. Also, an excuse a couple of weeks ago to ‘just stop in and see what’s going on,’ at my favorite pottery supply store, which conveniently is right on the way to Aéroport Charles de Gaulle where I needed to drop a friend. 

So, yes, I replaced the two most damaged kiln shelves, bought a few new glazes, some new tools, and met a very nice anglophone potter who was working the counter. On checking out, she raised an eyebrow at the new shelves, subtly of course. She knew. I knew she knew. She knew I knew she knew. So, we laughed. We’ve all been there. Or at least I’d like to think we have.

I’m firing again in a day or two, and have some properly washed shelves, a handful of test tiles, and some new glazes to go on them. And… a diamond-embedded grinding pad with a color-coordinated ball-peen hammer if things go wrong again. Which, they inevitably will, just perhaps not the same things.