Hindes checks the progress of the fire.
Wood stacked behind him is used to stoke the kiln. He reaches down and yanks out a clay plug the size of a grapefruit, one of six that ring the top of the structure. Flames and smoke leap through the hole. Hindes, professor of art and art history, peers into the inferno, the interior of a woodfired kiln, and starts barking instructions. Mike Maguire, graduate student in ceramics, hands a pot into the kiln to Chuck Hindes, who is placing the pieces to take advantage of the direction of the flame and melting ash.