Yesterday I told you a little bit of how things are working at my new home-studio. The process of my work and what I had been up to during the past weeks. Today I’d like to share some news, some are good and some middle way news ? However everything is on the bright side of life  Tuesday evening I was ready with coloring my sculptures and loaded the kiln and started it with success. Next day some happy dogs came out, some of them were already fit to go home and some others still needed one or two more rides in the kiln for extra luxury details 

As you can see in the photos a wide range of shapes and colors came out  I’m very very happy with everything even though some are quite ready yet, they all look promising. Having the kiln at home is the BEST thing ever!! I don’t have to hold on to others availability and I also don’t need to transport my delicate stuff across te city. Timings will be really improved this way  HOWEVER, we are on the testing early stages on how everything works! There were and are some risks at having a ceramic kiln inside the house and I’m taking care of every detail. There are funny issues that I had to go through. The first time I switched it on, few weeks ago, I didn’t know I should not use other high power facilities, like my oven to heat up frozen bread for dinner, so after a minute of starting my oven te light went off, the system collapsed by excessive usage of electricity (+%30) that was my first lesson, I shouldn’t dine and fire ceramics all together or things may go wrong ? The electricity system was checked when the kiln was installed but there still were things to keep big open eyes on as to be sure all worked. After that I used the kiln twice and it went perfect, but there came the 4th time and here comes my next incident…. somewhat predictable or expected or at least it could happen… when temperature raised over 800C the plug in the wall started overheating. I smelled burnt plastic as I entered the house after my evening walk with my dogs. I suspected something wrong and kept in hand my phone and firefighters number ? not that I expected a fire but one never knows. I called my father and told about the situation he promised my house wouldn’t burn but wires could melt and collapse my electric system again, I said I didn’t wanna stop the kiln as it may spoil my work and a she promise fire won’t happened I let the kiln work until… well until last minute … or until my nerves would help it haha. About 40 minutes went on and temperature was over 900C, I was upstairs using my computer and the plastic could be smelled there, so I went down and checked the plug, it was smoking so I decided it was time to preserve my life and shut down electricity, unplugged the kiln and rested the case. I put back the energy and after 5 minutes the electricity went off. Something might have been very wrong with the wires somewhere along the connection. But it was midnight and nothing could be done so I went to sleep and this morning I checked the plug and my suspicions where clear the wires melted ops!!!

Not much can be done during this week in Italy as everyone is out on vacation so I limited myself to fix those wires and give my self electricity again without risk of burning the house or electrocute myself. At the moment everything works normal I just need to talk someone next week to make my connection stronger where I plug the kiln

I’m overwhelmingly happy having my kiln at home and things like this are just fun along the road. I should only delay my work in the kiln for a week or more until electricity is proper and safe 
Barbara