New Year, New Foundations

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

YES! We have begun the foundations for the kiln shed and kiln! Now that the family are truly safe and settling into our own home, I can start the task of getting my work back on track. It is, of course, the firing of the kiln that finally defines the potter. So, after ten months in limbo, the joyous rebuilding begins!




In the corner of the front yard, behind the existing shed (which is currently home to a bevvy of cats) and at the end of the driveway, is a triangular space begging to be used. It is away from the house, which is important for fire safety, but much closer to the studio than my kiln was in Mashiko. It was always a challenge carrying pots to the kiln during rain, as my vessels are glazed raw and even one drop of rain can cause the glaze to crawl. During the four months of winter here the issue will be snow, which is unfamiliar territory for me. The first time I saw snow was the day I arrived in Japan, 22 years ago next week, and even in Mashiko we only had two or three snowfalls on average each year. It has been snowing to a greater or lesser degree every day here since Christmas, and I am told to expect at least a metre of snow by February. The children have been having snow ball fights and building snowmen and igloos to their hearts delight, and there is no greater joy than to hear children's laughter echoing through the flurries of snow in the garden.




I had arranged for the local contractor, Shimojo san, to start the foundations last month, before the ground froze, but the best laid plans...

As fate would have it, he arrived first thing in the morning on January 11th, and amid light flurries began setting up his theodolite.



The first day was spent taking levels, setting squares, driving pegs and putting up the outer guide frame. The kiln shed will be 3.6 metres wide by 4.5 metres deep. Once the outer framing was completed, he parked the back hoe ready for work the next day. He assured me that we can complete the job despite the snow, and I must trust him on this as he was born here and knows his craft well.




By 6:00AM the dawn lights the sky with amber and gold beyond the mountains to the south east, those mountains we crossed ten months ago, but the sun does not show its face over their peaks till after 7:15 as the kids go off to school. At 8:00AM the work begins in earnest. Excavating with the back hoe to lines drawn in calcium on the snowy ground, it is hard to tell the calcium from the snow! As the sun warms the ground the snow begins to melt.




By the time Sean is ready for preschool the main excavations are well underway. I cannot help but dance for joy, and Mika happens to catch a snap shot before I realize I'm being watched! It has begun, after all the trials of last year, it has begun!




A five centimetre layer of gravel is spread over the foundations next. We use recycled crushed concrete, rather than new gravel. Apart from my stance in terms of recycling for environmental reasons, it's cheaper! The truncated pyramid form of the foundation and the gravel are important for proper drainage.



The gravel is compressed and compacted with a vibrating roller, and levels are rechecked.




Once compressed, a damp proof sheet is spread over the foundations, and set in place with 5 centimetres of concrete.



Patches of concrete on top of the damp sheet will act as supports for the steel reinforcing. By 3:45PM the sun vanishes through the trees beyond the ridge to the south west and ice crystals stretch their talons across the puddles from the melted snow in the driveway. Shimojo san covers the foundations with tarpaulins, and assures me it will be OK overnight.

Overnight was minus 11 centigrade, and the tarpaulins are frozen to the surface of the concrete. I wait with baited breath for Shimojo sans arrival. "No problems," he says. "It's perfect."

Day 3, today, we frame the outside with the formers for the concrete and set the steel reinforcing. One of the many lessons which I learned from the earthquake was the importance of a strong foundation. That is why I have asked a professional to do the job.

The square and level are checked and double checked.

Steel reinforcing rod is set at 20 centimetre intervals. The total weight of the kiln will be about 7 tonnes, and the reinforcing has been calculated to support that weight. Anchor bolts for the kiln shed are welded to the steel reinforcing. The house in Ichikai was not secured to the stone footings, so when the earthquake hit the whole house was shaken from it's foundations. The angle iron frame around the kiln will likewise be anchored to the concrete this time, but those anchor bolts will need to be embedded later. It is important to learn the lessons from our experiences in order build a better future.

On the level, on the square, framed and reinforced. We will pour the slab on Monday, and it will take at least a week to cure. I hope to begin the kiln shed on the 23rd of January, and build the kiln in February.

My plans, however, are not set in concrete. I take each day as it comes, grateful for my blessings, and I know that I am moving forward. I know how suddenly circumstances can change, and so I hope for a bright future, but I am taking care to build it on a strong foundation.

Home for Christmas

We are home. The snow has covered the world in a white blanket, the wind wuthers around the eaves, but we are home at last, warm and safe. The children sleep soundly in the washitsu, and Mika wraps presents at the kitchen table, as I write while I wait for the christmas pudding to steam on the wood stove.
This last month has been a whirlwind, and I am eternally grateful to all my friends who rallied together to get us into this house before winter. The first task was to clean the house free of dust and mold, remove the piles of accumulated trash and give ourselves a clean and healthy start. My friends travelled from all points and gathered for a working bee, working at fever pitch. Steve, who organised the event, made a video which is here on youtube. The upstairs floor was a single layer of boards with gaps between, warped with age a loosened by rusty nails. Any dust from upstairs would sift down to the rooms below, and any attempt at heating would leak up through the gaps and vanish into the rafters. Gennevieve, Debbie, Julie, Bill; Thank You.

Separating into four main groups, we tackled each challenge. One group was dedicated to the continuing clean up operation, cutting up the scrap timber from upstairs and stacking it around the old shed for winter. It is their efforts that are warming the house now. Giichi, Laura, Heather; Thank you.

Another group cleaned the mold, dust and soot from the downstairs walls and ceilings, and the children sleep soundly in that room right now. Jane, Jo; Thank you.

A third group tackled the kitchen, ripping up the old floor, laying damp proof sheeting, relaying the floor, putting in new studs and insulation, then laying a new floor on top of that. This evening the children helped me mix the christmas pudding, each making a wish as they stirred. We sat at the kitchen table for dinner and laughed and joked...Thank you.

The fourth group screwed down the ricketty floor/ceiling boards upstairs, layed new studs and insulation, then a new floor on top of that. With funds from donations from friends around the world we managed to buy enough materials to repair and insulate three rooms downstairs and the studio work space. With the cieling insulated and sealed, I can now keep the living and working space warm...Steve, Brendan, Takashi, Aja; Thank you.

We shared the work, and went where the help was needed. At breaks we would drink starbucks coffee essence (Thank you Startbucks!) while Bill played his guitar and sang...the children all helped, I gave them each a hammer, and in years to come they will be able to point and say,"That is where we fixed the floor" or " This is where I bent a nail...". This is their home, they have helped to make it real, it belongs to them.

Since then our young friend Raku has been helping, finishing the floor, filling gaps, sticking bubble wrap to windows...As I walked home from seeing the children off the school the other morning, the sound of his cello hummed across the snow, and as I entered the house it's music thrummed through the new floor, the whole house becoming a sound board.

I have made a door above the stairwell from an old sliding door, and it keeps the warm air downstairs where we need it. I hope that the upstairs will become a gallery in the future, but not this winter. It will take a lot more work to achieve that goal, this year I have more important things to do...

We moved in on the 15th of December, nine months to the day since we evacuated from Ichikai. A good time to start a new life. I bought a small fir tree that day, and this morning we set it in one of my large bowls in the washitsu and decorated it. The christmas tree from Ichikai I planted in the garden there when I returned to pack our bellongings, it belongs there. This is our new christmas tree, and I hope that it will grow along with the children. We sang carols as we strung the tinsil on the tree, hung baubles on the boughs and as I set the star on the top most point of the tree. Our home is already full of love and music and laughter, friends become family, a house becomes a home.

The work is far from finished, but that's OK. Tomorrow is christmas eve, and we will move the last of our belongings here in the morning. Because of you, who have sent us help when we needed it, we are home. Now we are truly safe, and I have what I have wished for...a home for christmas. Thank you.

God Bless, and Merry Christmas to you all.

Close to home

The typhoons of last month seem to have washed the colour from the mountains, revealing the sepia study beneath. The first snow has streaked the tip of Tanigawa Dake with white, three weeks earlier than usual. Summer has gone, Autumn has come and Winter is close upon her heels.

Much has happened since last we spoke, and plans never quite work out the way we expect. The time spent at Laura's pottery in Nagano was very productive, and I am eternally grateful to her and Giichi for their support. It did, however put a great deal of pressure on Mika and the children, fending for themselves in this new environment. My role, first and foremost, is to protect my family, and it became increasingly clear that I could not do so from a distance. We have come through so much this year, but there are other dangers much closer to home. I need to be here, with my family.

After seeing the children off to school I set off on foot up the hill towards Takumi no Sato. Our plans to build a new studio on the edge of the craft village there were put on hold while I was away. It seems that fate had a hand in this as well, for in mid Summer one of Mika's distant relatives came to offer us another option. The house and land where Mika's grandmother was born was vacant and derelict, and the inheritor who lives an hour away had no interest in it, would we like to buy it? By instalments of course, no hurry, we're family....


And so we went to see this house. It stands 3.6 kilometers from Mika's parents house, in the west precincts of Takumi no Sato. I approach it now, walking past the mulberry orchard and onto the cobbled driveway. The mulberry leaves were used to feed silk worms back in the days when the family bred them commercially, and the upper floor of the farmhouse was dedicated to the business of raising the caterpillars till they spun cocoons, then trading them to the silk mills in other parts of Gunma. Here, it seems, was the start of the silk road.

To the left of the driveway is a stone walled channel, and beside it a rice paddy farmed by another relative. To the right, behind the mulberries, are vegetable patches, untended and overgrown, and a persimmon tree laden with fruit and bare of leaves. The drive breaks through the hedge, bracketted by cedar trees, and there is the house. Built in the fifth year of the Meiji era, 1873, the year Japan adopted the gregorian calendar, it is a traditional farmhouse of pillar and post construction, with plastered wattle and daub on a bamboo framework for the walls. In many ways it reminds me of Tudor architecture, strange how different cultures find common solutions.

The cats come running towards me from the old shed to the left in the front yard, mewling for attention and, more importantly, food. Stomach love. I ruffle their heads and give them a feed in their new home. In the shed are old barrels and, yes, even a saddle. We brought our four cats from Mashiko after the earthquake, and now we have seven....life is a precious thing.

Around the house are logs and beams and miscellaneous odds and sods. The old man who lived here last, Mika's great uncle, had been a bit of a hoarder. Not a bad thing in moderation. He had also paved around the house with concrete slabs and rocks and old roof tiles and roofing iron and...as a result the drainage around the house wasn't all that good.

Entering the "Genkan" entry hall there is the fragrance of damp earth. I call out "Tadaima!" to the empty house, the customary Japanese "I'm home!", and slide the door closed behind me. To the right is the wood furnace for the bath, then the bathroom and pit toilet beyond. To the left is the kitchen and living space. In front of me is the new studio, half earth floor, half wooden deck. This was the work space for the farm. In the back corner are the old stables, partly filled with rotting firewood. Shimaoka sensei's studio smelt like this, a musty aroma, the fragrance of a freshly opened bag of clay. This room smells like a pottery. A dirt floor maintains an even humidity, allowing pots to dry evenly, and prevents dust from gathering thus averting the danger of silicosis. It is also easier to stand on for long working periods than a concrete floor.

The wooden deck was rotten, as were the floors throughout the rest of the house. But I could see the potential. I also needed to make pots, to make a living for my family. At first I repaired a bare minimum, I needed a wedging table and a throwing space. In one of the old stables I built a wedging table, using stone from the ruins of our old house and wood from repairs to the floor of this house. It seems to fit.

One corner of the decking was badly broken, so I rebuilt that first, making room for two wheels. I had brought my old electric wheel from Mashiko, but I also had Hamada sensei's wheel to restore. The bearings were rusty and the wood dry and cracking from thirty years of dissuse. With the help of the local garage we removed the bearings and derusted them. So many people told me to just get new bearings....blasphemy! We restored it with the original bearings and nails, oiled the wood and it shone like new.

With this basic work space I was able to get the order of cups finished, fired in Nagano and delivered to Utsunomiya by the skin of my teeth.

The rest of the house, however is still unlivable...yet. Debi and Julie came up to help me rip up the studio floor and restump the foundations. Since then I have reframed it and built a raised throwing bench to accomodate the Hamada wheel. I suppose my legs must be longer than his were, it will take some adjustment!

The loft is full of "stuff", timber, bamboo, old silk worm equipment. There were also frames from old "Kotatsu" tables which made perfect frames for the wheel wells. The covers from the storage boxes, number coded with kanji calligraphy made ideal covers, and the one to cover Hamada's wheel even says "六ろ" (Roku Ro or "6R"), a phonetic pun for the japanese word for potters wheel, "Rokuro". It is as if it was waiting for me. Or perhaps my whole life has been preparing me for this...

It has, however, become imperative that we move out of our temporary residence and into this house as soon as can be. Mika and ,more importantly, the children need a safe and stable environment. My task now is to get this house livable, just the minimum will do, before the winter comes. I have put a temporary wood stove into the living room, replaced the sink in the kitchen, got the bath furnace in working order. There is a room which we can use for sleeping, but we must clean out the loft and relay the floor/ceiling so that ancient dust and mold doesn't filter through the gaps in the single layer of boards onto the sleeping children. We need to insulate and stop up gaps to keep out the bitter cold of the mountain winter. We need to heat the studio and living space.

My task today to finish the deck so that it is safe to climb the stairs, and to lay the stones into the "irori" charcoal brazier to maintain the studio temperature. I have saved as many of the original flooring boards as I can, jigsawing them together to keep the spirit of the original architecture. The stones for the irori are from the shed in Ichikai, the one that was supposed to be the studio there, which burnt down the day the lease became valid in December 1999. They are Ashinuma stone, from which Mashiko "Kaki" glaze is made. I carefully chisel them into shape and fit them into the frame I have left in the floor.

It is time to go and get the children. Sean from the preschool, Rohan and Canaan have walked back to Mika's brothers house from primary school. I go to get Sora from basketball practice. She is allowed to practice again now, though the crack in her spinal column will never mend, a constant reminder of how I failed to protect her from an over zealous basketball coach. If only I had been here, if only I my request for more off days had been listened to...fatigue fracture it's called, apparently, but hard to diagnose and once the bone has started to set it cannot be cured. The muscle and sinew supports it now, so she must maintain her muscle tone for the rest of her life. She smiles at me cheerfully as she gets in the car. I drive back to our farmhouse, and the children do their homework as I cook curry on the wood stove.

Mika brings "Bachan" (Grandma) to have dinner with us here. Tomorrow "Jichan" "Grand dad" returns from hospital after his stroke. That will be a celebration! We enjoy our meal in the warmth of the wood stove, and then I light the bath fire and also the charcoal in the irori for the first time. Bachan sits beside the fire and tells a few stories about the family history of this house.

The boys and I have a bath, but then we must return to Mikas brothers house to sleep. Soon we will not be living patchwork lives. My friends are gathering over thanksgiving for one last push before the snow, and we hope to be in the house by then. I hope to have the kiln built by Christmas and I have great hope for the new year. We could not have come this far save for the help and support of all our friends throughout the world, all of you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. We are are not quite there yet, but we are getting very close to home.

If you are coming our way, you are welcome. Our new address is;

121 Higashimine, Minakami-machi,
Tone-gun, Gunma-ken,
Japan 379-1418

T/F 0278-25-3982