​In 2024, I built my own woodfiring kiln and now fire most of my work that way. Woodfiring is slow, unpredictable, and intensely physical. It asks for patience, presence, and a willingness to let go of control. My first wood firing experience took place at what was then Millstone Pottery in McGregor, under the guidance of Paul de Jongh and Nina Shand. I later returned to do an apprenticeship with them. During that period, McGregor became home, and my then partner, now my husband, Lyle and I eventually decided to settle here. After Paul’s death in 2020, we considered taking over Millstone. In the end, it felt important for me to forge my own path. That decision led to designing and building my own kiln, rather than stepping comfortably into what came before. I work across a wide scale, from miniature teabowls for table salt to 60 cm tall jars, but I’m most drawn to larger pots. I tend to lose interest in long runs of small, repetitive forms, and can easily get absorbed in the making of a single large piece. I enjoy spending time with each pot, often working in series by scaling a form up or down, each piece growing by a set proportion. The engineering and problem-solving of this keeps my mind engaged. The work I’m most interested in sits somewhere between everyday function and a presence beyond use. These are objects meant to be held, poured from, and lived with. They hold parts of life: milk, flowers, tea, our precious things. At the same time, they are intended to hold their own through proportion, weight, and surface. Each piece is made as a singular work, shaped through an ongoing dialogue between fire, material, and process, rather than as a repeatable product. Often they’re the kind of object someone only needs one of: something that might sit on the table at a special dinner, but also be used daily in the kitchen. I’m drawn to woodfiring partly because of its unpredictability, but also because of the labour it requires. I like that it’s hard, physical, hot, and a little bit mad. There are no buttons to press and no timers to set; I work directly with the fire. Even as I learn how particular clays, glazes, and forms respond in this kiln, there comes a point where control has to give way. I can’t decide exactly where ash will settle, how a glaze will move, or how the flame will pass and leave its marks. The kiln always has the final say. Each firing becomes a conversation, one that continues to shape how I work, what I make, and what I’m able to let go of.