Now I have a new little test kiln in the cellar of my house. I can do whatever I want, free from the (completely reasonable) constraints of my former lovely community clay studio and my friend's home studio.
I can burn my own house down, I can poison us, not others.
Next steps: kiln wash the shelves, hook up the exhaust, and run a test with witness cones.
I've been reading Sally Mann's "Art Work: On the Creative Life" : in a nutshell, just keep working.
I can do that.