Ask any potter how they feel when they open the kiln after a firing, and I’m certain everyone would tell you that they lift the lid with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. There are so many things that can go wrong; something may have exploded spreading shards of fired clay all over everything or, in the case of a glaze firing, the colours and finishes may have ended up a million miles away from what you hoped for, or imagined. I fire my bowls three times and the final firing is to add the lustre, gold, platinum or mother of pearl, so there's plenty of room for disaster. I tried all sorts of combinations of temperatures and finishes and nothing had quite produced the gold I was looking for, until this happy day when I lifted the lid to see a whole shelf full of pure bright gold, shining up at me like treasure in a chest!