The Moment I Knew I Needed My Own Salt Kiln
For a while, being invited to a salt firing was enough. Then one mug at one unloading told me it wasn't.
I learned salt firing in other people's kilns, and I'm grateful for every one of those firings. But you can't build a body of work around a process you only get to touch a couple of times a year. The moment I admitted I wanted salt at the center of my work, I knew I needed my own kiln.
- Shared kilns are how most of us meet atmospheric firing, and that generosity matters
- Salt firing is learned by repetition: adjusting, failing and refining, firing after firing
- Building a kiln is infrastructure: brick, burners, space, cost and maintenance
Being near it was enough, at first
In those early firings I was just glad to be close to the work. I stacked shelves, wadded pots, fed salt into the ports and watched the flame change. Those firings had an electricity my electric kiln never had. The atmosphere moved. The chamber felt alive. What came out was shaped by more than glaze chemistry.
But the kiln wasn't mine. Not the firing schedule. Not the stacking decisions. Not the long-term direction.
The mug that changed it
I remember one unloading in particular. I picked up a mug that had caught the salt just right. Nothing flashy. Warm flashing on one side and a soft orange-peel texture that made the surface feel weathered instead of coated. It felt grounded.
And a thought showed up that I tried to ignore for a while: if I wanted this to shape my work consistently, not occasionally, I couldn't depend on access.
Why access isn't enough
Salt firing isn't casual. It isn't something you dip into once or twice a year and build an identity around. It asks for repetition, adjustment, failure and refinement. You learn it by doing it again and again.
When you fire in someone else's kiln, you're part of the process, but you aren't steering it. You work around class schedules, shared loads and group decisions. That generosity is how most of us get introduced to atmospheric firing. It just isn't how you build a foundation.
A quiet decision
The realization wasn't dramatic. There was no speech and no cinematic kiln opening. It was quieter than that: salt firing wasn't just something I admired. It was something I wanted to commit to.
Building a salt kiln in Utah is not a small decision. It's brick, burners, space, cost and maintenance. It's choosing a direction that shapes the studio physically and financially. It means saying, this is the lane.
Once I admitted that I wanted salt to be central, everything else started lining up. Cone 10 firings stopped being high-fire experiments and became preparation. Holding back on surface became a choice instead of an accident. Wild clay testing became part of a bigger plan.
From idea to responsibility
The kiln stopped being an idea and became a responsibility. That was the moment. Not loud, just clear. If I'm going to make salt fired pottery seriously, I need to build the place where that work can live for the long haul.
If you want to learn salt firing, show up to every shared firing you can and take notes on everything: where pots sat, how much salt went in, what the weather was. Those notes become the starting point when the kiln is finally yours.
I'm trying to build the kind of kiln that builds me back. You can follow the process here as it happens.
