good peeps

My kiln died yesterday. During the first stage of firing this new piece that I was going to incorporate with a textile, the controller read out an "error" message, and, poof, oops, oh, no, Mr. Bill!

Perhaps all is not lost. As you can see, the temperature never got up to the fusing stage (around 1400 degrees), and the glass just melted a teeny bit. Here it is before going into the kiln:

During the firing process, the kiln shelf has to be either coated with a special wash, or covered with kiln paper, a crisp thin layer-- each method prevents the glass from sticking to the kiln shelf. You can see in the first photo that the paper has a fuzzy-fleecy-powdery appearance, evidence that the kiln did go up to a high temperature (maybe 700 degrees?) before it died (the second picture shows the flat-crisp paper pre-firing).

So, here's my plan. I have talked with the kiln manufacturers and they are trying to figure out what went wrong. If we can't work it out by phone, I will drive the beloved kiln down to them, in the Los Angeles area (luckily for me, a fairly long jaunt, hahaha, as I don't care for L.A.). These people have fixed the kiln before and are absolutely superb -- johnny-on-the-spot, keen, responsive, that kind of peeps.

Step two of my plan is to take the injured piece to the local glass fusing store and have it fired there. They, too, are superb, johnny-on-the-spot, responsive, that kind of peeps.

Good vibes abound. Here's hoping the piece and my kiln can be salvaged.