A successful workshop

It has been full on this last week. Apart from delaying Walis firing till Sunday morning because of a Typhoon on saturday night, everything went according to plan. Even with torrential rain all weekend!

The sasukenei kiln was packed on thursday night, with all hands on deck. We managed to sart the kiln by 9:00pm and then we started the shifts of four people for four hours. After a nabe supper the rest of us crashed till friday morning.

Friday, bright and early we started packing my kiln with bisque ware. Lo and behold we ran out, and I had to go home and get more of my own pots to fill the front. That meant it was a Raw firing, so it was going to be a long day. We got it started by 1:30pm and finished at 1:30am, exactly 12 hours. I didn't seal the door this time with slip and paper, and flattened the seger cone 10, 1299c by the pyrometer.

While this was happening kusakabes firing continued, and Steve Mills built his kiln.

Wali gave instruction on Terra sigilata and Raku, and constructed his kiln.

On Saturday Kusakabe finished his firing, a total of 36 hours. Steve and wali packed their kilns and Steve fired his in 6 hours!

George Guine brought in meals on wheels for a culinary extravaganza on Saturday night and a great time was had by all!

Come Sunday, the weather was miraculously fine and clear, and as wali set the flying kiln into orbit we unpacked the other three kilns. The results were fantastic, with close to zero losses. As we pulled the raku pots hot from Walis kiln it was exciting to see the variety of colours and surfaces that can be achieved with different clays in the same kiln and the same clay in different kilns. It was a rich and fulfilling workshop, and everyone went away with a wealth of new experience.

A Busy Month

This last week I travelled north to Murata town in Miyagi prefecture for their annual Pottery Festival.

I have been doing it for the last six years, and there are nearly seventy potters from all over Japan and this year Taiwan who display their works there.

It also saw the start of three group exhibitions. The first "ALL FIRED UP", opened on the 15th at the Mashiko Tougei Club gallery. Apart from my own work there is also the work of Masakazu Kusakabe (Japan), Wali Hawes (India), Steve Mills (England) and Steve Tootell (Wales). It goes until the 5th of November.

It is an exhibition of the work of the five presenters of the "FANTASTIC FIRE" woodfiring workshop which starts tomorrow in Mashiko.

At Gallery St Ives in Tokyo an exhibition of teabowls by (mainly) british potters started on the 19th and will continue until November 5th. The opening was a fantastic event, but unfortunately I was in Murata!

The 20th saw the start of "TOTALLY TEABOWLS" at Oakwood gallery in the UK as well, and that will be going until the 4th of November.

If you have time, and happen to be in the right country, please visit.

KAMATAKI

We have fired the new kilns. We stacked on the fourth, and Kusakabe san started firing that night at about 10:00pm. When I arrived and started firing my kiln at 7:00am on the 5th he was at 380c. Because there were lots of raw pots in the kiln I aimed at a fourteen hour firing. The first 600 degrees are the most dangerous for raw pots, with the crucial temperatures being 350c, when the chemical water is burned off, and 573c when the silica expands.


Kusakabe san sealed the kiln door with refractory mortar slurry on newspaper, like wallpapering, and it seemed like a good idea so we did it to my kiln too. As a result the kiln was sealed much better than my normal firing and so it was much more heavily reduced.　We reached temperature, put in 2kg of soda ash and finished firing in 13 hours. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so there are no photos of the firing! We fire again for "Fantastic Fire" on the 26th, so I will do a more detailed record then. Kusakabe sans firing continued until 3:00pm on saturday the 6th, and reached the horrifying temperature of 1375c, and we had to desperately drag it back down to 1320 under a heavy reduction before we finished!

We unpacked both kilns on the 9th, mine had much more carbon trapping than I expected, but there were 0 losses!


Kusakabe sans kiln had excellent ash glazing, and though many peices were lost the results of the suviving work was very rewarding. Next time will be better!　

Tea bowls in context

Like any other funtional vessel, a tea bowl is not complete until it is in use. It is part of a greater art work, art in process, and it is part of the beauty that affects all five senses. Yes, most certainly, a tea bowl is a beautiful object in and of itself, but it is more than that.







If you have read the essay mentioned in my last blog you will understand that it is the interaction between all of the elements of the tea ceremony that complete the bowl. Be it the fragrance of the tatami mats or the sweetness of the Mama Daifuku.











Nor is it just the moment when the bowl is full of fresh tea, but it is also the making process, the drinking and finishing process.










And when you have finished, the way the last skerrick of tea runs back into the "Chadamari" and hangs on the shoulder is just as important an expression of the beauty of process as the whisking of the tea.

Fresh from the kiln

Just unpacked the firing and the results were very pleasing! Some excellent new tea bowls for example. This Chawan was at the fire face so the ash has built up on the front of the bowl and formed runnels down the vertical surface. The black glaze inside is mirror like and will look majestic when it contains green tea!


Towards the middle of the kiln this Tea bowl shows stronger reds and oranges. I have used a clay with slightly more iron, and there is a lustrous patina on the inside where the igusa straw has marked the bowl.


A smaller tea bowl for the outdoor tea ceremony was near the bottom of the kiln and has developed an almost pearlescent surface over the soft orange flashing.

The Tea bowls will be included in the Tea bowl Exhibition at Gallery St Ives in Tokyo which starts later this month. http://www.gallery-st-ives.co.jp/
It coincides with the "Totally Teabowls" exhibition at Oakwood Ceramics in the UK, for which they have published my essay "Just My Cup of Tea" in their magazine section. http://www.oakwoodceramics.co.uk/MagazineEuanCraigMyCupofTea.htm


Other tea ware also came out of the kiln, like this "Kensui", a bowl for discarding the hot water used to wash the tea bowl in the tea ceremony. It is taller than a tea bowl, with a wider, more stable foot and a flared rim avoid spillage.




Apart from tea ware the wine goblets came out with excellent carbon trapping and transluscency.









There were also two varieties of "Kumidashi" tea cups, which are used for serving tea to guests in a more informal situation. Tea would be poured into them from a "Kyusu" tea pot. This design is like a small version of a "Gohan Chawan" or rice tea bowl.









These kumidashi are collared slightly at the lip to make them more comfortable to hold and drink from. Usually sets are of five pieces, as six is too many and four is unlucky. The word for four, "Shi", is pronounced the same as the word for death, so five it is!

A Taste of Autumn

Summer is gone. The mornings are cooler now, the leaves are turning colour and the chestnuts are ripe and falling from the trees. For thousands of years before the "Yamato" oriental race entered Japan the indigenous Jomon people grew chestnuts as their staple diet. Chestnut trees, both wild and cultivated, are spread throughout Japan, and we are blessed with both varieties in our garden.



It is also the time of the rice harvest, and Mikas' parents grow organic rice on the family property in Gunma. Each year they bring us the new rice fresh from the harvest. Mikas' sister also gave us some "Kuro Mai" wild rice, so today we will feast on the seasons gifts.



"KURI GOHAN" (Chestnut Rice)



450 grams of white rice

50 grams of "KuroMai"

200 grams of peeled chestnuts

600mls of japanese stock

3 spare teaspoons of salt



Wash the rice and let it stand for an hour. Put all ingredients into your rice cooker, press the button and viola! If you dont have a rice cooker, put all the ingredients into a lidded non stick saucepan, bring to the boil on a high flame, reduce the flame to very low for twenty minutes, then let it stand for five minutes before stirring gently so as not to mash the chestnuts.



One of the neighbours also brought us some home grown "Sato Imo" (Taro Potatoes). One of our favourite Japanese country meals is "Niku Jaga" (meat and potatoes) which is usually made with beef and ordinary potatoes. This is my original recipe!



"EUAN'S NIKU JAGA"



600 grams of Taro potatoes

350 grams of sliced lamb

200 grams of sliced onion

3 tablespoons of honey

6 tablespoons of "Mirin" cooking sake

6 tablespoons of soy sauce

200 grams of "Shirataki" yam noodles

750 mls of water



Put all ingredients into a pressure cooker, seal and cook on a high flame till the valve starts to hiss. Reduce to a low flame for ten minutes. Allow to cool naturally till the valve drops, then serve immediately with a garnish of "Sansho"(Japanese Native Pepper).



Sansho grows wild in the woods here, so I took a stroll up the hill and picked a few fronds. It is best to hold the fronds in your cupped hand and clap once as hard as you can. This bursts the fragrance cells without damaging the leaves, making the aroma fill the air! It was the perfect meal for a Mashiko wood firing in autumn.

Packing them in

The way a kiln is packed affects the finished outcome of the pots. The height of the shelves and the space between pots can be adjusted to control flame flow.

In this firing the shelves are close together towards the bottom and spaced wider at the top in order to force flame flow up the fire face rather than let it flow through the kiln lower down.

The pots are arranged also in alternating rows to make the flame travel diagonally through the stack. I have done this because I want to have stronger ash and flame effects on the pots at the back of the kiln which are mainly unglazed, and by so doing reduce the amount of ash that carries through to the front of the kiln where I have placed black glazed dinner plates.

The wine goblets have "Igusa" straw tied around the stems, any excess from which will fall into the "Kumidashi" tea cups which fit into the space between their stems.

Too much ash on the black glaze waters it down and turns it a honey colour. I try to keep the straw off the black glaze for the same reason, but want to have markings on the rim.

Pyrometric cones are placed top and bottom to measure the heat work inside the kiln. Made from the same materials as glazes, they will melt at set temperatures. I always put in cones for 1260, 1280 and 1300 degrees celsius.

The last thing to do is close the kiln door, which entails stacking about 200 bricks into the kiln mouth. To prevent grains of sand or dust from falling into the pots at the front of the kiln and spoiling the glaze, I dip the bricks into a tub of water as I stack the door. This also reduces the major health risk of dust in the air.

Once the door is stacked I seal the top with fire clay and it's ready to fire tomorrow.