Making soda pop

My first soda firing in many a year! My studio moved to being almost entirely oxidation back in 2021, but they partnered with another studio in May 2025 to give us all a chance to learn their soda firing setup and workflow. Half the group has already signed up for the next firing, and the only reason I haven’t is that I don’t have any backlog of bisqueware to include.

For this round, I decided to indulge a bit and just focus on my favorite bits of soda firing: simple shapes with over-the-top textures that’d highlight the effects of the soda kiln. I made about a dozen cups and teabowls, with a couple closed-form jars thrown in for fun. About half the pieces were made of bog-standard white BC6 stoneware, with the other half made of the same, except with 10% white aquarium sand wedged in to provide texture. With three exceptions, all the pieces were put in the kiln unglazed other than a liner glaze on the inside. The exteriors were either left bare or had flashing slip applied.

The exceptions to that were a trio of teabowls inspired by some Jian-style chawan I saw in Japan. Two were glazed in a gold tenmoku glaze with delightfully different results due to placement in the kiln, and one was glazed in a matte yellow. The two tenmoku bowls were two of my favorites of the firing, even if the one that received more soda needed a date with an angle grinder after firing.

The studio (Rat City over in West Seattle) kept wonderfully detailed documentation on the firing, available here.