final firing

We are in the middle of firing our last kiln, the Olsen kiln. There are only 6 of this type of Olsen kilns in the world, and they are tricky things to fire. For those of you who like to geek out on kilns, I refer you to this site where you can read all about it. This kiln was built a couple of years ago and has been fired a few times, and results have been boring. Brown, brown, and if you don’t like brown—well, still more brown.

We had several hours of group discussion on how to change the results: How to load the work in, should we build walls inside, should we blow in sawdust or ash or both, how to adjust the airflow… The airflow element is fascinating because this kiln has 4 chimneys, three in the back and one on the side, across from two stoking chambers. It’s referred to as the three queens and a king. At one point in the discussion I wrote a note to Kristin, “Are we in a senior seminar?” Then we both straightened up when we realized at the same moment that yes indeed, we are.

It took 8 hours to load the Olsen kiln, and we’ve been babying it along, raising the temperature very slowly to protect the big work that will only fit in this kiln. I’ve worked two shifts and at some point I started to feel very connected to this kiln. I loved stoking the different sides and observing their differences: how the anagama side would shoot the temperature up like a hot-headed teenager, how the groundhog side would shower beautiful sparks when I dropped the wood in, like little fire butterflies. My shift was done at 8 PM but I went back out there after midnight last night and hung out till almost 4 AM, I really did not want to leave. The kiln was getting hotter, some of my arm hair got burned off, and we just kept feeding our baby wood. By now we were off the smaller pieces and on to the big square chunks, and the kiln just ate it up. It really is starting to seem like a person.

more beautiful disasters

I’ve written before about the importance of letting go as a general philosophy. This philosophy is imperative if you are a ceramic artist, working with a material that breaks, cracks, explodes, sticks to the kiln shelf, and the hundreds if other things that can go wrong when you work with clay. I slaved over this butterfly piece, one of the handbuilt pieces I made during my break from the wheel. In the process I got very attached. I got so attached that after I finished it and dried it very slowly, nursing it like a little baby, I decided to take a picture of it before I put it in the Olsen kiln, our final firing as a group. I thought it needed a beautiful natural background so I picked it up to take it to the proper place. I still don’t know what happened, I think I was holding it in the middle and the wings were too heavy, and it fell apart in my hands. Everyone was so upset because they knew I spent a whole day making it and a half day beautifying it, and there was a tense moment as my studio mates watched to see what would happen next. I just shrugged and said, “I’ll make another, and it’ll be better, not so damn heavy”. Well, you know I didn't say "damn", but another word... Anyway, tension released. The work that has gotten destroyed around here could break anyone’s heart: two of Park’s effortless teapots shattered during a clumsy moment, Madhur’s sculpted ram lost his horns, Hwang’s life-size table developed a crack during drying, a collapsed composite vase, and a half dozen other things that went awry at some point. No one cries, no one complains. It’s clay, and you just make another.

one master leaves

Our time is running out here at Kanayama, and certain members of our program have duties to return to at home. Today we are celebrating with Park Kook-Hyun, as he prepares to return to Korea early tomorrow morning. Park-san is one of the top three Unggi masters in Korea, and it has been an amazing honor to work in the same room with him. He has also provided all of us with more laughter than we could have possibly imagined with his frat boy sense of humor, his “mushroom" pots, and perpetual drinking of soju throughout the day. Park is also a very kind person, always ready to share his "Korean water", clay technique, and dirty jokes. We’ll miss you Park-san!

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.