4 am

The sun is rising, birds are singing, and the kilns are burning.

This is a special kiln that Ryoji designed specifically for creating consistent wood ash effects called a Hai Kaburi. There was a detailed article written about it in the June/July 2006 Ceramics Monthly for those of you interested. This baby eats wood like the monster it is; once it reaches temperature you stoke it for 24 hours straight firing at 1250 degrees Celsius. Below is a picture of Ryoji bringing reinforcements-- this is one of three pallets of wood we burned. When you stoke, the fire is leaping out at you and the heat is incredible. Stoking happens about every 8-12 minutes, and you need that downtime just to make sure you didn't catch on fire anywhere. I was feeling pretty dang studly when my shift ended at 8 am this morning, just in time to feel some aftershocks from the earthquake.

breaking the rules

I don’t have a lot of rules in my studio, but one I do have is I never drink alcohol while I make work. Occasionally I’ll have a beer on a Friday afternoon while I’m cleaning, but that’s it. Looks like in Japan my rules are made to be broken.

pot off!

When you have a group of potters in the house, a little competiton is called for. We had a pot off on Sunday with two categories of competition: who could throw the most cups in 15 minutes, and who could throw the tallest form in 10 minutes. Ryoji and Park were the most formidable and were therefore given handicaps—Park threw on a kick wheel and Ryoji threw on his first wheel. He built it himself and there are only 30 revolutions per minute. The sad thing is, he still beat us all.

time to expand

Being a ceramic artist puts you in a community where when you meet another potter, you have an instant connection because you understand all the heartache and difficulty-and the joy and accomplishment-that goes into creating work. So much can go wrong at every stage of creation. I think it's probably like parenthood, how parents understand each other in a way that non-parents cannot.

Participating in this residency has put me in a wider world community of potters, and even though we have some language barriers, we all come in with a certain understanding of one another and there is communication despite lack of language comprehension. It reminds me of when I first started going to Grateful Dead concerts as a teenager. I got hooked on going to shows because I felt like I was in a community of people who were interested in living life in the way I wanted to live it too. That was the first time I ever felt that feeling of love and support from strangers and I continue to find it in my clay community

And like following the Grateful Dead, you can also tour around the globe, hooking up with residency programs and visiting with the potters you meet there in their home countries. There is a whole other ceramic scene out there, and now I know this is only the first time I will be traveling the world for my work. And at the same time I can indulge my other passion: experiencing different cultures.

get off the wheel!

My greatest creative passion in life is throwing on the wheel. For me it’s fun, it’s easy, and I can make stuff quickly, which suits my impatient and snappy nature. When I arrived in Japan, the first thing I did was start throwing on the wheel, but I wasn’t making anything that excited me. So I threw a bunch of the local porcelain, the shortest porcelain I’ve ever thrown. But I conquered it after a few hours and didn’t know what to do after that. I’m obsessed with nesting bowls and I’ve always wanted to find the time to do a nesting set of 18, so I figured I would work on that. Did that… bored with myself again. Then I thought I would assign myself a task; no more throwing for a week, only handbuilding. I have never gotten into handbuilding. The last time I handbuilt anything was back when I first took a pottery class and had to take the handbuilding before I took the throwing class. I barely scraped by with a “C”. And I handbuilt the leaf platter but that was a nightmare for me.

So, I rolled some slabs on Ryoji’s electric slab roller; so great cause I can drink coffee while my slabs roll out. I made an awful box, but I had fun. Then I made a few lily pads, kind of falling back into old habits, but at least they were not thrown. Then I made this vase you see here, and I think I love it. And I think I love handbuilding too!

where am I?

People want to know where I am exactly in Japan. I’m staying in the very small town of Kanayama, located just outside Goshogawara City in the northern province of Aomori. Aomori is highlighted here on the map. We are not far from the Sea of Japan, about a 30 minute drive away. Kanayama is in the countryside, and apple orchards along with rice are the major agricultural products. Everywhere you look there are apple orchards, and each apple is wrapped in a little bag for protection-- talk about labor intensive farming! Goshagawara City is minutes away by car, and about 15 minutes by bicycle. Goshagawara is not particularly charming, akin perhaps to Bakersfield, California (no offense to people on Bakersfield) and there are all the modern conveniences that you would find in any large city. But I must say that Kanayama is magical, and I am so happy to be here.

kiln on fire

This is a picture of our first kiln firing. The kiln fires for a 36 hour cycle, and it must be continually stoked, which means someone has to be there at all times to feed wood to the kiln every minute or two. My stoking shift was with Madhur (of New Delhi) and Kim (of Seoul). We had a very difficult shift because we were at a point where the kiln was almost at the final firing temperature. It is so difficult to get the rhythm down of feeding the kiln at the right moment—too much wood and you pull the temperature down, too little and the same happens. We had it going for a while, then a party showed up bearing sake and we lost 20 degrees Celsius in the ensuing commotion. It took almost an hour to get back to where we were. It was a wonderful and new experience for me though. At my studio I just press a button and the kiln fires. I’ve never felt so in touch with a firing before. We’ll see on Sunday what comes out!