RHS Ceramics teacher Emily Jones has recently become overworked with her kilns breaking down, causing her class’s work to be delayed and has been trying to communicate with a variety of companies for assistance. 

“We have four kilns and we have a very, very large gas kiln and what a gas kiln does is I have control of the flames, so I get these massive huge flames I can control the temperature. Then I have two electric kilns and think of an electric kiln as a really hot oven, so I just go beep boop and it goes up to the flame to the temperature it needs to go, then goes down. So the problem with the gas kiln is that the pilot system is broken. So I’m ping ponging between two companies right now and it’s really annoying cause we need to have an entirely new pilot system and the pilot system is what turns on the gas and makes the fire go. The problem is when the gas kiln doesn’t work, then I have to put all of the artwork into the electric kilns, and the electric kiln, they can only do so many firings before what’s called the elements, and those are the things that heat up,” says Jones. 

With the struggle of contacting several schools, it has been a complicated process getting projects finished on time. 

“Both points of the process have been halted a little bit, but I believe she’s getting some people in to fix it. So it should begin to move a little bit smoother,” says Elizabeth Alvarado. 

“My electric kiln that’s broken is going to be fixed on Wednesday, so hopefully I don’t have to put a bunch of artwork into my car and head on over to Woodcreek. Granite Bay has the exact same system as we do. I talked to him and he was so good about being like “Hey you just got to be on them to get it done” and he’s given me a lot of numbers to hopefully reach out and be like “Hey if these aren’t working, can I put all the artwork in my car and drive it over to your place?” So yes, everyone’s been very helpful,” says Jones.

The procedure of finishing a ceramics project can be put on a tight schedule.

“For some reason I got really popular, and I have 120 students. So when I am behind on 120 pieces of art that impacts the program because I have to start thinking like “Okay, what can I have my kids do so that they can stay in their magical creative process without getting super frustrated,” says Jones.