A kiln is a structure made to contain heat for a prolonged period of time.
Below are several kilns. The first is a small electric kiln.

This is a large gas kiln standing empty ...

... and stacked, ready to fire.

The kiln below is called a car kiln...

... because the floor and door roll out on tracks like a train car.

Some traditional Hopi potters in Northern Arizona rebuild bonfire kilns each time they fire pots. Agnes Setalla Nahsonhoya and her sister Karen Namoki store their firing materials in the area shown below. Each time they fire their own or their mother’s pots, they build a new structure on the wash tubs in front of the shed.

You can see a vein of yellow clay toward the bottom of the mesa. Agnes and her family refine this and other clays of the area to make their coil-built pots. Notice the ancient buildings of the village of Walpi on the top of the mesa. Hopi people have made pots here for centuries.

The Hopi sisters place old wash tubs on the ground. They set old tin roofing and grates on the tubs and cover them with a bed of ashes. They carefully place pots to be fired and broken pot pieces to build a mound.

Then they set chunks of dried sheep dung around the mound.

Finally they bend old tin roofing to fit around the mound and add another layer of dung. They light a fire and feed more fuel as it burns -- for about two and a half hours.

Click and scroll down to see finished pots by Agnes Nahsonhoya.

This is the end of Part One of Lesson Two: Proportions and Profiles

Continue to Part Two: Space and Profiles