new work - june 2014 firing

Lovely firing... almost all oak and mixed hardwoods.  Paid special attention to maintaining a breathing quality of back pressure when stoking during soak.  Even cones in every pack: cone 11 flat and 12 bending.

Wood-fired potter's vortex

I'm spending way more time as a lumber jack these days than a potter. My obsession with raw materials and wood has led me to summon mass quantities of trees and clay from the universe. Now it's up to me to do something with it. Be careful what you ask for...

ideas and stories of tradition: are they worth it and how do we escape them?

In my college clay program we were given a lot of anecdotes and lessons about Asian ceramic traditions.  Some of them, perhaps a lot of them, bordered on legend: the origin of copper red glazes, the strictness of Japanese apprenticeships, clay being dug in pottery villages for use two generations in the future, etc.  These stories loomed large in my psyche and not only set the bar for performance and discipline very high, but also served to discredit a lot of my successes.  I felt as though my own innovations, concepts, and ultimately my pots didn't live up to the myths of the master potter gods that existed centuries ago in an austere heaven of tatami mat tea rooms and austere transcendence.  Now once again, a decade later, I'm grappling with ideas of tradition, acceptance, and artistic validation.

These stories are not true and do not represent true tradition, but they are persistent and have lasting effects that are possibly more damaging than inspiring.  I think they are like religious myths that lead whole populations to fail to recognize their own spiritual capabilities and to imagine that spiritual drama is something that happens in far off places thousands of years in the past.  To mythologize may be chalked up to be a tendency of human nature, but I believe that the quicker we can rid ourselves of these illusions about our past the sooner we may lift ourselves out of creative and spiritual stagnation.  

Besides the far off myths of Asian tradition that were passed down through the academic setting in college,  I come from a town with a rich but somewhat forgotten ceramic history.  My great-great grandfather was, in fact, a jug-maker here on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay in the late 1800's.  The beaches north of Fairhope and the local museums are full of old pots, kiln sites, and shards of a time not so long ago when a potter had a place in the community that did not have to be imagined or justified by an artist's will.  Today, a potters role in the community is not so clear cut.  We can buy cheap tableware, storage containers, and even decorative ceramics almost everywhere, so what does that leave for the potter to provide? For me,  the biggest thing a potter provides isn't the pots at all.  The biggest thing a potter can provide is a way to get back in touch with one's connection to the earth and to a working community.  This is done for me through long wood-firings at my kiln.  From my perspective, the work done through the firing process is the validation for the final products, which can be seen as wasteful ornaments in many ways.  However, the pot is persistent, stays around for a few million years, and definitely commands our attention and shapes our perception of tradition. 

I'll probably be sorting all this stuff out for the rest of my life.

life with an anagama is hard to figure out

 I'm in my mid-thirties.  I had the dream of building an anagama kiln, and after a decade of ups and downs, I have now constructed and fired the beast four times.  I have a couple of shows on the horizon, I've received a lot of community support locally and abroad,  and yet, I am barely making any money from the enterprise.  At the outset of the project and throughout my education as a ceramic artist in college there was never any talk of making a living outside of academia (or even making a living in general). In the world of my small liberal arts school and supportive and intellectual parents, knowledge and education were supreme and I undertook this kiln project to do things that had little to do with the making of the dollar.  I intended to reconnect people with nature through primitive technology, I wanted my work to be used in the homes and lives of people in my community, and I wanted to feel the fulfillment of participating in a tangible and powerful natural  process.  I have accomplished these things and they have incredible value.  But I now find myself needing to adapt to make this enterprise a sustainable economic reality.  I ask very often, "What did I get myself into?"  I see the value in the whole process, I have my mind in every molecule inside my kiln and in each piece of split wood, but at the end of the day I'm left with bunch of brown pots to sell.

How do people make a living and maintain the kind of high standards of integrity that inspire one to undertake being a wood-fire clay worker in the first place?  One immediate answer is: They don't.  There is almost no one that I know that makes a living exclusively from making wood-fired ceramic work without some serious outside support or other income.  I'm sure there are plenty of people that are making wood-fire work and have done it with out the kinds of support that I have had and many others have as well.  One only has to go to a large ceramic conference to see that the majority of academically trained ceramic artists do not have easy opportunities to set up studios, make work, and make a living.  Most ceramic artists, and especially young ceramic artists, are nomadic and shuffle around from residency, to craft school, to post-grad program.  They are all hustling around the world to find facilities to support their work.  Truly, wood-fire pottery (or pottery in general) isn't a money making endeavor and one normally gets into it for reasons other than making a living.  So how does one go on to pay the bills and support a family doing this labor of love?

Lots of ideas come to mind on how to make a living as a ceramic artist, and perhaps I'm really just on a rant of self-doubt, fearful of the future, and ashamed of my naivety in the past.  I'm not sure if I'd be happier doing anything else either.  Maybe I'm just baffled and caught off guard too late in life on the realities of what is valued in our society.  Even among ceramic artists, I hear people claim not to like wood-fire ceramics on aesthetic merit, and my inner zealot becomes enraged at their lack of ideals.  I became involved with wood-fired kilns because wood-firing is the antithesis of the modern technological disconnect in our culture of manufacturing and consuming. Wood-firing is a powerful technological reconnect that quickly changes one's perspective on how humankind has gained ground in this world.  The aesthetic merit of wood-fired is miles more than skin deep.  It's beautiful because it has radical integrity and tells the story of that integrity for those with the slightest inquiry into its process.

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I am really baffled by how little people know about the ceramic process.  As modern Americans, many of us know so very little about how things in our life have come to be, and we don't seem to know what to do with the information once we are presented with it either.  Most people are impressed with the wood-fire process once it is explained or especially if they witness or participate in it.  But I often wonder if they see the anagama process in the context of their own lives as consumers and within the context of the marketing of skin deep beauty.  

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thoughts on healing through anagama process and pottery

During the long years spent in the construction of my anagama kiln and  studio I asked myself if the path of a wood-firing studio potter is the best way that I can contribute to the spiritual progress of humanity.  During these years I invested myself heavily in bodywork and yoga, and became very aware of how direct contact through touch and movement helps people deeply.  I questioned whether the anagama process possesses enough direct contact to heal people? Are there too many interfering influences to assure that I am touching people with a healing purity?  etc.  Now that my kiln is up and running and I've had a couple of years of firings I see a lot of the answers to my existential questions about healing humanity manifesting throughout the process.

It's really easy to see how the firing process brings people together around a powerfully focused natural force.  Anagamas are magnetic and half the people on my firing crew have no other ties to the clay community than their dedication to firing.  People want to be a part of the firing process in so many ways, and they themselves are transformed along with the pottery.  These social observations are spiritually worthwhile, easy to see, and keep me motivated.  However, I've had a tougher time figuring out what to do about the pots themselves: the product of this process.  

I was imprinted with the  "Process not product" mantra by my professor in the very first week of Clay 101 and that creed easily led me down the path of anagama work.   Now, over ten years later and just embarking on a ceramic career, selling the product is a necessity.  How does the manufactured product of the anagama process guide people on a spiritual path, and how can anagama pottery justify itself in a world of mass-produced commodities?  I believe anagama clay works stand apart because they tell their story plainly and have little to hide.  Most manufactured products are designed and marketed in ways that obscure their origins and making processes.  Most products have unsettling stories to tell and we've become accustomed to turning a blind eye to the backgrounds of the objects that surround us.  

In anagama work one can easily see the original materials and process of its making, and the work invites the user to ask more questions: questions about geology, ecology, and about the people in one's community who form and fire these ceramic works.  Hopefully this will lead the owners of these works to ask more questions about the interconnectedness of their lives with the world around them and will perhaps lead them to make more discerning decisions as they appreciate all that goes into creating beauty in our world.    

Clay dictates form

The other night my girlfriend and I were talking about pottery.   She was remarking that some of the forms that I am making in my current work cycle are different/new, and that she liked them.  My response to her compliment was to open up a conversation about the characteristic of the clay itself: I am using a different clay body made from different deposits and it is changing and influencing the new forms about which she was speaking.  It took her off guard when I immediately began talking about particle sizes, moisture content, and flocculants instead of historical references and ideas about form and proportion.  Ideas about form, proportion, and function are always flowing through my mind.  However, it is the particular characteristics of each clay deposit and each clay body that truly dictate which forms are manifested on the wheel.   Realizing this takes some of the conceptual pressure off, I guess.  Makes me realize that concepts in art are only as good as the process and materials will allow.  Anyway, all of this has been written about a thousand times before.  I just want to make sure I get it down on the page in my own short words.

Thoughts on career and anagama kilns

How do I make a career out of this kiln? A decade has passed since clearing the first tree to make room for my large studio and kiln shed building, and I have pulled together three successful community firing events this past year and a half.  As one may guess, I am no where near sustaining myself with the volume or quality of work coming from my anagama.  Thoughts of financial windfalls and mega-grants pass through my mind as I ponder what financial success as a wood-fire artist looks like.  The enormous effort of both building the facilities and preparing for firings, my intermittent work-cycles, and a seemingly lack of demand for wood-fired pottery send me wondering why I ever invested an expensive college education in this erudite and extremely laborious pursuit.  

In so many ways, I am the product of an extended childhood that is unknown to many, but that is more and more common in my generation.  When I began my obsession with ceramics during my freshman year of college, the thought of financial responsibility was no more than a mysterious whisper.  I had always shaped my life around interests that engaged my mind, body, and spirit and expected the world to meet me with appreciation and support - and largely it did.  Upon graduation I moved back into an 1880's farmhouse on my family's land and began the kiln project that has anchored me during this past third of my life.  All I could think of during this long period of pay-as-you-go construction was the completion of the project and the firing of the kiln - not what comes afterward.  The how-do-I-make-an-anagama-my-job mantra just circles in my head.

Visiting other wood-fire artists and especially searching the web, I see people who seem to have successful kilns, craft centers, and pottery careers and I wonder what their recipe is.  Many of them are in academics, which is the only career path that was ever reinforced or recommended during my college education.  I was always attracted to teaching and see myself as much a teacher as a studio artist, and having this kiln allows and requires me to flex my educational skills constantly.  However, I built this huge kiln and a studio space during the period when most people were in graduate school.  Now I am looking around for direction - wondering what a studio artist career with an anagama on the gulf coast can really look like.

Oh geez... It's been a long time since I've posted anything here and sort of abandoned this site, because it seemed like less of a real website than something that's more complicated to produce.  I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to build a wordpress site with a template.  I've had my drag and drop site more or less drop off and refuse to load.  Anyways, somehow the official artist website continues to elude me.  HOWEVER, I have completed and firing my anagama twice this past year.  This last firing was truly heartening, and some of the work coming out of the four and half day firing was stunning and exceeded my expectations.  The kiln itself fires great and peak temps are reached evenly front to back about 24-30 after beginning to stoke with wood after a light preheat with propane.

i've got power!!!!

a week away

Last week in Philiadelphia, I visited the clay studio.  It is a big city clay studio.  They do an amazing job.  However, I was just a little taken aback at how "rule oriented"  the place seemed to be. I guees that is what's needed in a studio and gallery of such large size.  Also, it seemed like atmospheric kilns  were something that the studio and many of the artists there just didn't do - Surprising to me, though it probably shouldn;t have been.

Backat home, I'm feeling like I need to push the projected firing of my kiln back till after the holidays.  The pressure of finishing the kiln, making a body of work, and coordinating a firing - all before christmas - seems kind of like an unescessary challenge. 

Also, the arched grate bars that I cast didn't work at all.  I'm going to use arch bricks to create arched firebox grates....

the japanese potters...

.... are really great.  i am having such a great time just being in their presence and seeing so many similarities and differences in the way they work with clay. more later.

morning time... need to loosen the grip

I'm  drinking tea and eating cereal at the kitchen table this morning, and I realize how much the morning pages that I wrote so diligently at the beginning of this year helped my life and creativity.  I've been slacking on them, and feeling more and more overwhelmed by life.  I've given myself a deadline to fire sometime in december.... Every deadline I've put on myself and the kiln project in the past I have betrayed.

Also, this project is vitally important to me.  It isn't just a job that i can escape from afterhours...  It is my life's work, and in the years that this project has been underway many emotions and expectations have clung to this hulk of a thing. 

This weekend we began grate bars for the fireboxes.  They will be made of castable, as well.  I'm gearing up to help my friend Susie Bowman host some japanese potters for the week.  She met them last year in Echizen.  They have never done a soda firing or been to the united states, so it should be a fun and interesting week - if not a little stressful. 

My camera is broken and sent back to nikon for repair, hence the no photos being posted lately. 

exhale.....

kaolin, lovely kaolin

lovely kaolin mine. 

third day of kiln shelf casting...

I'll get some photos soon....

I'm on the tthrid day of working on kiln shelf casting.  My hands feel like they are vibrated off of my arms, and my arms are like tightly braided steel cables: Working with the conctrete vibrator is hardcore stuff, especially trying to man-handle the kind of control that these small castings require...

Also, I think I may have figured out the vibrator technique a little better and I hope that I didn't leave too much air in the first shelves I cast!  I hate not knowing about such a crucial thing...

the chimney blocks

So check it out, these blocks are precast from an alumina and silicon carbide castable which includes stainless steel fibers.  Complete overkill for the chimney, but it is the material with which I had to work.  I still have tons of these too.  I'm thinking of building another kiln using them for the bulk of the construction.  They are, however,  very, very, very heavy. The blocks were originally designed to be installed in the cooling chamber of a lime kiln.  They are called "cooler tiles" which makes them sound kind of breezy and quaint.  Let me tell you, they are neither breezy nor quaint.

HESITATION ABOUT CASTING SHELVES

Okay, I'm procrastinating... I've been looking over the research article and found out that the alumina based castable they used was only 8 percent silica.... the rest was fused alumina or various sizes.  My castables all have close to 30% silica.  Hopefully, this won't be an issue at 2300-2400 degrees F, and may actually help with mullite formation at those temps.  The norwegian folks were testing at higher temps mostly. 

today's work - kiln shelves out of castable

Man, I searched the web over and under for some refererence to building kiln shelves out of refractory castable and I finally (after months of searching) came up with this research article (norwegian microsilica company experiment).  These guys make a synthetic micro silica that apparently helps create the best mullite matrixes ever.  They are really pumped about what they do, and I got really pumped when I finally found validation for my assumptions. 

Today I put together forms for these  castable kiln shelves - tomorrow I cast them. All of them are 18 inches wide and 36 or 30 inches long, and last ut not least 1 3/4 inches thick.  I rented a concrete vibrator to bring the material into the tightest possible relationship -  a relationship that will hopefully foster a fecund grove of mullite crystals.   I'll hopefully post photos after tomorrow.

lately...

Here we go...  the scene couple of weeks ago.

Notice the card board sheet on top of the mixer to keep down dust.  Also, a mixer like this is essential for mixing the industrial castable - ESSENTIAL.  I can't emphasize it enough.  So many problems with the material and so much pain and time could have been minimized by using this mixer throughout the whole building process. 

This roller ramp also came in really handy for getting the trays of castable up to the working area. 

This is the insulating layer - a mix of sawdust, sandy fill dirt, and concrete mix.  We applied over the castable with fencing wire reinforcement.  It was so refreshing to use this mix after dealing with the thixotropic craziness of the castable. 

This is looking up over the side door, over the swelling flue chamber, and onto the giant block chimney... those blocks.... details in another post.

Purple Bricks? I want them!

Does anyone know why this happens?  It seems to only happen on really heavily reduced alumina washed bricks.  It is still one of those mysteries of the kiln for me, but i'm sure someone out there has done some research or has a good guess.  These bricks are from the montevallo anagama, "Fat Bastard", which i think is dimensionally exactly the same as Jack Troy's big anagama - the one in his book, "Wood-Fired Stoneware and Porcelain." 

local clays

I use a lot of local clay and am will probably write about it lot...

I live in a really clay rich area on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay.  There are so many exposed deposits of usable clay that really need little more than wedging to be a passable working body. In the 1800's there were dozens of kilns dotting the beaches and bluffs along the wooded shore where the clay banks tumbled into the water and were cut cleanly by spring fed streams. 

There are quite a few different working and firing qualities to our local clay, but the one common thread is that they are all unusually high in silica.  This is normally not a problem and most clays do really well without any additives.  However, I have run into problems with spalling and dunting with one very tight and white clay (with ocher and rosy iron marbling) from a west mobile mine.  I now add about 10 percent felspar and a little ball clay to most of the local clays to help bring some of that cristobalite into a less dangerous form of silica.