Finally! After seemingly endless days of loading, the front is finished. The large pieces in front are most refires with the exception of the large jar to the right. The big white piece in the middle isn’t a pot, it is a large piece of Shirakawa Toseki (porcelain stone from the Shirakawa area near Arita dam). The square right behind it is a piece of sandstone that I cut in two and hollowed out to make a box.
On and off I’ve had requests for pictures of the kiln, so here are some selected photos of it from beginning to completion. Building this kiln was the subject of the first Workshop In Taku, in 2010. The second in the series, Workshop in Taku 2012: The Simple Teabowl, will happen from May 12 – 18, 2012. Full details here:
http://karatsupots.com/workshop2012/2012home.html
The series starts not with ‘the kiln’, but ‘the hole’.
Kiln design and expert workshop guidance by Craig Edwards of Minnesota.
Finished the middle setting today. It is mostly saggared ware. I picked up these nifty saggars that are big enough for larger pieces like flower vases and mizusashi. 今日は真ん中のセッティングを完成した。殆んどはボシに入った水指と花入れです。
There is a reason for doing it like this. I’m hoping that the saggars will effectively split the front chamber into two chambers, allowing the front to achieve temp more easily. ボシを使う理由は二つ：独特な効果を得るためと共に壁になって欲しい。大きな火立てになり、部屋が二つに分けられ、手前の部屋は温度が上がりやすくなると想定している。
Just behind the saggars are teapots along the floor, they will be covered in partially to fully covered in embers from the wood stoked directly behind them. The 4 square frame shaped kiln posts are there to prevent the stoked wood from bouncing/rolling down onto the pots. ボシの直ぐ裏には搾り出し急須が置かれている。ここですぐ裏の焚口からの薪が熾きになり、その熾きが急須の周りと上に溜まり、炭化効果が得られると思う。薪が作品の上に転ばないよう、支柱を急須と焚口下の間に置いてある。
Two more things: got a new ember rustling tool which is a shovel head welded onto a pole. this should come in handy for tossing embers and ash around.
The date for the fall firing is official! 2011/11/11. There must be some sort of astrological significance to this, be it good or bad.
Since I’ve been making a lot or work to go into the kiln for this firing, I’ve been constantly short on ware boards, so decided the best way to free some up would be to get the pots off of them by loading them into the kiln. This has the added benefit of breaking up the loading process so it is not so danged exhausting.
This afternoon saw the completion of the rear setting, all cone 6 ware give or take. E-Karatsu, Kawakujira, and Kohiki. Most everything is smaller and doesn’t have much height, so to fill in the higher spaces many of the pots were balanced on kiln posts. The added benefit to this is that if the temperature gets too high, the pots will collapse, invert around the posts and stick to them completely and utterly. Post-In-A-Cup.
The two jars are refires that had a lot of unmelted ash on the shoulders. In order to melt it, I’ve applied an ash glaze that should melt and flux the sintered ash underneath, hopefully. And, if I’m really lucky, they will slump or split in the firing, sticking to everything around them.
Started making pots for the wood kiln today, after spending some time making a list of what needed making, and working on some sketches and sizing.
These are the beginning of the first items on the list, I wanted to get more done but spent much of the day cleaning up the studio after the gas kiln unloading. This is a very typical Karatsu shape, and you see them from very small all the way up to very large. These are 19cm and 16cm sizes. As you can see from the pictures most of these plates will probably get brush deco and feldspar glaze (cone 6, give or take), some others will get rice straw ash glaze (cone 11, give or take)
Not!
The concrete combined with the sump pump is doing its job admirably. I took these pictures this morning after a night of med/heavy rain (but nothing close to the storm last evening). Water has started to seep in places, and since the part in the foreground is not under cover, some rain falls right in, but that will only be a problem during firing. Last firing there was some rain and I strung a tarp down at an angle from the cover which worked alright, if not very elegant.
Here are the pictures of everything when it is moderately wet. Water is collecting around the edges of the concrete, but even in the heavy rain yesterday, was unable to reach the top. The sump pump has activated at least once, judging from the wetness of the concrete in the sump. When the top float goes up the pump turns on, and when the bottom float goes down, the pump turns off. It takes about 25 seconds to pump the water out, MUCH faster than the previous pond pump. The sump form collapsed under the weight of the concrete so is not the oval I had planned, but looking at this pic now, the sump really resembles a fish, don’t you think. Especially with the corrugated edges where the tail would be.
I installed a tube into the concrete through which to run the pump hose and power line, so it would be hidden. There is a drain about one meter to the right of where the hose and line emerge. Once a trough is dug between the two, the hose will be almost hidden. A trough will also prevent water from traveling along the surface toward the workshop path and kiln.
The unfortunate casualties of all this improvement are the frogs, and I am going to miss them. Hopefully they will find other low wet areas in the yard to hang out.
