It all started when gleaming black surfaced pottery emerged from the flames in my backyard. Firing ceramics in the backyard left me with a thirst for more and a desire to see what other ways I could fire my ceramic work. Near the end of senior year I experimented with several different ways of firing pottery. Oftentimes I found myself lighting a fire in the backyard covering my ceramic work with a terracotta flower pot or a metal bucket to create a reduced atmosphere resulting in a gorgeous black clay body. With inspiration and guidance from my high school ceramics teacher, Mr. Webb, shared the iconic Fred Olsen Kiln Book. Little did I know how intense this project would be as well as the work that it takes to fire wood fueled kilns.