Señora Maria Irene Pérez

The first completed kiln is one belonging to Señora Maria Irene Pérez.

This kiln is used by three artisans to fire their pieces and is a perfect example of its kind. You can see in the photo to the right that the kiln is round, but open on top. When firing the pieces, the kiln was covered by pieces of lamina - which allowed most of the heat to escape and destroy both the lamina put on top and the lamina that acted as a roof.

This is what the kiln now looks like. As you can see, it’s been built up, closed in and a chimney now extends beyond the roof.

Being the first one finished, it was also the first one tried. Unfortunately, not all went according to plan. 40 of the 120 comales (large, clay plates) came out cracked. It is for that reason that we have temporarily stopped this sort of construction. We’re waiting for this artisan to fire again and see if it was a flook the first time.

Possible reasons for the breakage include:

• If the oven was heated to quickly


• If the oven cooled too quickly.


• If the oven wasn’t given sufficient time to dry.

It could be a combination of the three - it’s a new design and thus needs to be worked out. I’ll keep you updated as to how it goes. And don´t worry about the artisan´s loss - I reimbursed her for the lost comales.

This, surprisingly, doesn’t affect the entire project. 4 out of the 9 artisans have chosen to add some material themselves and construct their ovens from scratch - deeming the old ones to worn and need of repair. Of these artisans, some have chosen a different design - a square kiln that has proven to save wood and fire at a higher temperature