the head of the ceramics dept learned his wood fire techniques in Japan, including a Shinto take on the kiln gods.
wadding is a material glaze doesn't stick too, and it's used to prop up pieces in a wood fire kiln because otherwise the wood ash would weld them to the shelves.
everyone has to make a little wood fire idol out of wadding and place them on top of the kiln
and unlike a gas or electric kiln that can be programmed and then left alone aside from a few checks, a wood fire kiln needs to be babysat for the full 2-3 day fire (for our size kiln anyway).
cool thing is there's an external pit where we burn thin pieces of wood to get a good ash layer on the pieces, and you can cook in said pit while you're watching. but our prof required us to throw a little bit of whatever we cooked into the main fire as ordering
he also opened the firing by sharing some sake with the kiln before lighting it