A French Man and Two Kilns
Back in December of last year, I did a holiday market, and had postcards about the community studio project on the table as a conversation starter. And it worked! As a woman was reading the card she looked up and asked me “do you need a kiln?” She was a realtor, and her client was purchasing a home from a french ceramic artist, who was moving back to France in early February. He had two large kilns he was trying to sell ahead of his move, but she didn’t know what kind of kilns they were. And the type of kiln makes a big difference as to whether or not it was something I’d be interested in. She took my contact information and said she’d put me in touch with him, and I promptly forgot about it.
Exterior of the wood fire kiln.
About a week later, a friend of mine called me to tell me about this french guy selling two kilns. Her friend was buying the place and really wanted the kilns gone before they took ownership, so she gave me his contact information and I reached out. Turns out, Patrice (that’s the French guy’s name) was a wood fire and raku guy, so the kilns he was selling were very niche. He’d converted an old electric glass fusion kiln (also known as a coffin kiln because it’s low and wide) into a gas raku kiln to accommodate his large sculptures, and he had built a small wood fire kiln all by himself. Now he was selling both for 1500€ each.
Patrice grew bonsai trees using local olive trees in Portugal (among other kinds of trees). His collections was incredible.
While this was a great deal, I have zero experience with wood fire, and the kiln would need to be broken down, brick by brick and transported 40 minutes back to the house. Over 400 bricks, plus a metal hood he’d built. The raku kiln was giant and didn’t reach the temperatures I fire to, plus physically moving the thing would take a small army of people and a big truck, two things we didn’t have as newcomers to Portugal. So we spent some time with Patrice, looking at his art, and bonsai collection, and we were on our way.
Raku Kiln.
A week or so later he wrote me and offered them for 1000€ each, as he was running out of time. So Mariana and I discussed using our fundraising money to purchase them for the community studio. After much debate, we decided against it, as we still did not (and still do not 7 months later) have a location for the studio, and there are more pressing things to purchase with that money. So again, I wrote to Patrice, and thanked him but said we just didn’t have the funds to make it happen. And that was that, or so I thought.
On New Year’s day I woke up to an email from Patrice saying, if I wanted I could have one of the kilns for free! We discussed this and decided we would take the bricks and components of the wood fire kiln to use to build a gas kiln in the future. We’d been discussing a gas kiln because we don’t have enough electricity at the house to fire my bigger kiln, and we had gone through three electricians at that point with no real movement on an upgrade. So Nick and I made several trips back and forth to his house to help disassemble the thing brick by brick and transport it a little at a time, in our small car and Mariana’s little van. With every visit, he circled back on the big raku kiln- didn’t we want to buy it? And eventually as he ran out of time, he told us we could just take that too if we could transport it!
I spoke with Mariana, and within 24 hours she had found us a deal on a truck rental, someone to drive it, and a crew of people to help us lift the thing! We decided to pull 500 € from the studio fund to pay him for both, we also used fundraising money to cover the truck rental, and we got to work… in the rain. Luckily Patrice’s neighbor had a big tractor with an arm that he used to lift the raku kiln onto the truck, and my neighbor’s had a forklift that the drove over to lift it off the truck and put it into the house! Talk about something coming together perfectly! It really bolstered my spirits, even though I was unsure what we would do with either of these things, or how long it would take to put them to use.
Pate and I hatching kiln building plans.
Fast forward a bit- I’m talking with Chris Pate, an old roommate of. mine from Portland, who just so happens to be an atmospheric kiln builder, and we hatched a plan! He would come to Portugal to teach a kiln building workshop, and we would use the bricks to build a soda fire gas kiln! So Pate has been here the last few weeks, helping us build out the residency studio, fix some plumbing issues, and make a plan to build out the new kiln. I’m so excited. Before he flies back to the US next week, we’ll finalize the plan for the kiln and the workshop for summer 2026, and I’ll have almost a year to raise the money for the rest of the brick and other components. Our first residency house workshop and retreat is in the works!
I can’t wait to share more, but it will have to wait just a bit longer. Would you be interested in learning how to build and/or fire work in a soda kiln? Drop me a comment or send me a note, and I’ll keep you in the loop when we are ready to announce the dates and prices.