Then and now. The time it has taken me to get around to writing my next entry, seasons have changed, I've spent some time in the Coromandel, travelled to Japan and have fired the small Martin Anagama twice. Crimson leaves littered the grounds, and gathered in giant piles on the Martin property, contrasted with now, buds are bursting and delicate petals flittering in the wind like snow. So much magic held amoungst the trees and their keepers.
Firing the Anagma has been wildly insightful, challenging, thrilling, tiresome, surprising, full of community wood firing spirit and I've fallen in love with the kiln. The first firing felt like we were stoking with hope, chance and had the naievety which was not too dissimilar to learning how to drive your first car. The rose tinted glassed were on, and I felt fuelled by adrenaline and flame.
We started the firing nice and slow, long flames pulled through the kiln and after 12-16 hours we had a lovely dusting of ash on our pots. We pushed through the nights, and days, a southern wind blew up the valley and chilled our bones. We built a fort with the shelter roof pulled from the large anagma and solace was brought as the kiln started to reflect its heat back to us as the temperatures soared. Silent gratitudes.
Like many kilns, it can be a challenge to get an even temperature throughout the kiln. As the sun rose on the last day, we were greeted with a heavy frost across the fields. The golden sunrise and bi planes crossing the airstrip only elevated the moods, we were all enthused regardless of how bedraggled we looked. We finished firing after 72 hours, and did a spectacular super stoke to finish. Getting to temperature was not a problem.
The pots from this firing, I particularly loved, contrasting blues and yellows from the front. The denser commercial clays had greens and oranges, and the back of the kiln had aubergine hues contrasted with burnt ochres. We also had a lot of melon skin from un melted ash, which wasnt as desirable, it became our goal for the next firing to work on melting that.
Which leads me to the early September firing, another new moon, season, team, and kiln full of work. For me, I had been fortunate enough to travel to Japan and make some pots with some local rich feldspatic clay from Shigaraki. Scotty and I planned, reviewed, adjusted many times which I belive was a way we set our intentions for the firing. It was of great interest to me, watching the flame travel through the kiln and what adjustments I could do with air flow, dampers, stoking and pressure. Unfortuately we had a probe that was reading about 200 degrees out from what we thought the temperature was which meant that the kilns temperature rose a lot quicker than we had anticipated. On one night shift with Jaime, the probe seemed to catch fire and break - so we ended up firing blind for four hours just holding the kiln in reduction. It turned out to be the right move, phew, and we carried on firing for another 24 hours.
At peak temperature, we did a Hikadashi! My first, and it was thrilling to delicately lift the small tea bowl out of the kiln on a long iron pole and admire the melted green hues from the ash - all while trying to avoid getting burnt. We certainly had many occasions where the gloves started to smoke, a little too much perhaps. Riccardo knows that I mean. We then started to rake the embers on the front pots which created some interested effects once they were un earthed.
Several days later, we were met with a lot of ash still built up in the kiln. But as we had this for a lot of the firing, we were greeted with stunning indigo's and and crusty ash which looked like the pots had been sitting on the floor of the sea bed for a few centuaries. This firings results were all quite a surpise for me, and I needed to sit with my work for a few days in order to polish them and let them tell the story of their firing. I had a couple of stand out pieces I was happy with, but the underdogs were the side stoke sake bottles I made in Japan. They had such a good variety of colour, and as I worked on them I was happy with how they revealed themselvs. They weren't trying to be something, they just had an energy of their own. I guess for me it was such a surprise to work and fire with a clay that I had no previous experience with.
Always such a journey working with clay and firing with flame and wood. I'm already looking foward to the next one.
Images by Scott Brough @scottyb_._
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