Category Archives: Korea

Call for residency applications.

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The Yanggu Creative craft Residency is calling for applications for the coming year 2027.

The Residency has 6 studios, 2 or which are open to international artist applications for a period of 3 months. The residency is free of charge, but you must pay for your own expenses like food, transport, electricity etc.

I will attach the flyer below;

모집공고 Call for Artists_Yanggu Craft Residency ProgramDownload

http://www.yanggum.or.kr/contents.do?cid=c8d07a5bc7cb4c1da76469936c511cf2

Call for International Artist:
Yanggu Baekto Village Craft Studio
Residency Program

  1. Residency Overview
    A. Eligibility
  • International applicants: University with a 4-year or higher major in art
    B. Length of Residence

C. Number of recruits
8 international artists in total
D. Residence
Yanggu Baekto Craft Creation Studio – Private Studio : 37.44㎡ per artist – Kiln Room: 72.72㎡ – Laboratory: 53.10㎡ – Common corridor and terrace

  1. Application Period and Submission

A. Application Period
June 10, 2026 – June 30, 2026
B. Submission Method
Email: dldrkdl@korea.kr
※ Please write the “Yanggu Baekto Village Craft Studio Residency Application Form

  1. Required Documents

Applicants must submit the following documents:
Residency Application Form
Residency Work Plan
Artist Statement / Self-Introduction
Consent Form for Collection and Use of Personal Information
Certificate of Graduation (or Expected Graduation Certificate)
Portfolio including:
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Approximately 10 recent artworks
Artwork descriptions
Artist statement
Any additional relevant materials
Certificate of Foreigner Registration (if applicable)
Submitted materials will not be returned. Additional documents may be requested if necessary.

  1. Responsibilities of the Artist in Residence

Selected artists are required to:
Use the studio primarily for artistic creation and research.
Maintain and care for studio facilities and surrounding environments.
Comply with residency regulations and contractual obligations.
Donate approximately one artwork upon completion of the residency, subject to review and approval by the Yanggu White Porcelain Museum Collection Committee.
Utility Costs: Each resident artist is responsible for paying their individual electricity expenses.
Residency Fee
There is no residency fee.

  1. Selection Process

Document Review
July 2 – July 10, 2026
Results Announcement
Applicants will be notified individually by email during July 2026.
Residency Agreement
Residency agreements will be signed during July 2026.
As the residency program is organized into four separate sessions, selected artists will be admitted according to their designated residency period.

  1. Provide support

A. Use of kilns and equipment
B. Opportunity to participate in exhibitions organized by the Yanggu Ceramics Museum (based on the review of the Advisory Committee)
C. Supporting the firing of traditional wooden kilns
D. Provided by Yanggu White Clay
E. Access to research materials on white clay and white ceramics
F. Utilization of Museum Equipment and Facilities

  1. Additional Information

A. If the submitted information is found to be false, the period of residence may be canceled.
B. The applicant is responsible for any errors or omissions in the application form or any penalties caused by failure to contact them.
C. Application timeline is subject to change. Applicants will be notified individually of any changes.
D. Inquiries: Yanggu Ceramics Museum Office ☎ +82-33-480-7237
이메일 : dldrkdl@korea.kr

Yanggu Baekto Village Craft Studio
Residency Program Application
Application

Pursuant to the public notice for the artist residency program at the “Yanggu Baekto Village Craft Studio” established by Yanggu-gun, I hereby submit my application and agree not to raise any objections to the outcome of the selection process.

Date: 2026. . .

Applicant: (Signature)

To: Governor of Yanggu County

※ Submitted documents will not be returned.
Work Plan for the Residency Period

Please provide a detailed and specific annual work plan. Applicants may use a separate or self-prepared format.

Examples:

Creative Activities: Working with White clay to explore and expand the material’s unique characteristics.
Exhibition Plan: Scheduled for 0000 at 00 Gallery, Seoul – aimed at expanding the discourse on 00.
Activity Plan: Planning and conducting cultural art lectures at the museum; engaging in exchange with 00.
Others: Another exhibition scheduled for 0000, aiming to deepen the dialogue on 00.
Personal Statement

※ Writing Guidelines

Please write freely in the given format, ensuring to include your academic background, professional and research experiences, and notable achievements.
The statement must be written using a word processor and should not exceed two A4 pages.

Date: 2026. . .

Applicant: (Signature)
Artist CV

Consent to Collection and Use of Personal Information

Data Collection Organization: Yanggu Porcelain Museum Scope and Purpose of Collection:
Name, Date of Birth, Address, Email, Contact Information

Purpose of Use: Verification of submitted supporting documents

I hereby apply for the Yanggu Baekto Village Craft Studio residency program and give my consent for the collection and use of my personal information.

Date: 2026. . .

Applicant: (Signature)

To: Governor of Yanggu County

※ Submitted documents will not be returned.

2026 Yanggu Craft Creation Studio
Resident Artist Agreement
Article 1 (Contracting Parties)

  • Provider: Yanggu County (Yanggu White Porcelain Museum)
  • Resident Artist:
    Article 2 (Contract Period)
  1. The contract period shall be as follows:
 From , 2026 to , 20___.
  2. The initial contract start date for Resident Artist is , 2026.
     - Domestic Artists: The contract is valid for one year and may be extended for up to two years upon review by the selection committee.
     - International Artists: The contract period shall be three (3) months.
  3. If the result of the review or the renewal date falls within the designated move-out period after contract expiration, it shall be included in the extension period. (However, if renewal is not approved within the move-out period, the artist must vacate within 10 days from the date of notification.)
    Article 3 (Facility Usage Fee)
  4. Facility rental for the operation of the Yanggu Craft Creation Studio shall be provided free of charge.
  5. All operational costs and material expenses, including utilities (excluding water), shall be borne entirely by the resident artist.
    Article 4 (Cooperation Obligations)
    Resident artists must actively support and cooperate with various programs planned and operated by the Yanggu White Porcelain Museum, including:
  6. Development and operation of programs necessary for the advancement of Yanggu Baekto Village.
  7. Development and operation of educational programs in collaboration with local residents and students.
  8. Participation in programs for the promotion of regional ceramic culture.
  9. Other related support and cooperation activities.
    Article 5 (Obligations)
  10. Must reside at the studio for at least 20 days each month.
  11. Must maintain decorum appropriate to the use of public facilities.
  12. If a violation of obligations is discovered, residency may be revoked, and various supports may be restricted.
    Article 6 (Facility Management)
  13. Responsible for the maintenance and care of all equipment and furnishings in the used facilities.
  14. Must thoroughly manage all ceramic production equipment provided and installed by Yanggu County.
  15. Must ensure proper environmental maintenance around the facilities.
    Article 7 (Support Provisions)
  16. Support for repairs and defects in buildings or facilities used by the resident artist.
  17. Support for selling resident artists’ works or products through the museum shop of the Yanggu White Porcelain Museum.
  18. Access to equipment owned by the Yanggu White Porcelain Museum.
  19. Provision of research materials related to Yanggu White Clay and Yanggu White Porcelain.
  20. Yanggu White Clay may be provided for a fee (up to 210 kg per year). Unauthorized transport outside Yanggu is prohibited; violations will result in confiscation and future restrictions.
  21. Participation in exhibitions planned by the Yanggu White Porcelain Museum may be granted following deliberation by the advisory committee.
  22. Additional support necessary for studio operation may be provided through prior consultation.
    Article 8 (Artwork Donation)
    Resident artists may donate one piece of work annually or upon completion of the residency period. Donated works shall be subject to acceptance by the Yanggu White Porcelain Museum’s acquisition review committee.
    Article 9 (Contract Termination and Departure)
  23. If the resident artist wishes to terminate the contract.
  24. If the artist violates the terms of the contract or becomes incapable of fulfilling obligations.
  25. If the Governor of Yanggu deems contract termination appropriate.
  26. Resident artists must vacate the premises within 10 days of receiving notice.
  27. Upon departure, all facilities and equipment must be restored to their original condition.
    Article 10 (Responsibility for Disputes)
    Yanggu White Porcelain Museum shall bear no responsibility for any civil or criminal disputes arising between resident artists or between a resident artist and a third party. Any such disputes shall be resolved by the parties concerned at their own responsibility and expense.
    Article 11 (Contract Execution)
    This contract is prepared in duplicate, with one copy retained by each party. It takes effect from the date of signing.
    
Date: _, 2026
    
Resident Artist
    Name: ______ (Signature)
    Address: ______
    
Yanggu County
    Name: Director, Yanggu White Porcelain Museum (Signature)
    Address: 5182, Pyeonghwa-ro, Bangsan-myeon, Yanggu-gun

Poetry and Madness 3

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I am now just over half way through my sojourn here in Korea. 5 weeks to go. How am I going? 

Well, I’m only certain of two things, and that is Death and Taxes. I’m hoping that nether of them catch up with me here to spoil my stay!

Amazingly, I am just about where I would like to be in terms of my progress. I have almost finished all the throwing. From now on it will be all about drying, bisqueing, glazing and wood firing. Thankfully I don’t have to cut, split and stack all my own wood!

So far I haven’t really left my studio/flat for more than a few hours in 6 weeks. I work all day, everyday, and its starting to pay off. My making skills and my ability to see in advance what is happening to these massive lumps of spinning jelly-like, floppy, sericite paste, as it slowly degrades under the force of gravity back down towards the wheel head. I have learnt to feel what is about to happen and what I need to do in the precise moment and order to get the outcome that I want. Knowing when to stop is a key lesson. Perfection is out of my reach at this level, ‘good enough’ turns out to be the highest level of things that I can achieve at this time. But I’m OK with that. I’m just so glad to be able to be here and have this humiliating experience of failing at almost every turn. But I hope to achieve just a few elegant jars to leave behind, that I can be proud of.

Making a ‘good-enough’ Moon Jar is quite demanding for various reasons. Firstly, they are huge, needing 10, or 12 or 15 kilos of clay to make just one half. Secondly, They are made from porcelain clay that is quite floppy and non-plastic, compared to stoneware or earthenware clays. Thirdly, the shape is a very difficult one to master, even with good plastic clay. The aim is to make a very open, wide, fully rounded, bowl shape with a very small foot. This is the shape most likely to squat down and collapse if not made carefully. That is why it is made in two pieces. But even then, it’s not easy in porcelain.

So when these three elements are combined, throwing large lumps of floppy clay, into a very wide shape, but with a tiny foot, there isn’t much to hold it up. I can only offer ‘good will’ and the little bit of skill that I have to help it along.

I’m in awe of those early Korean potters here who managed this impossible feat of throwing, while working on a wooden kick wheel with absolutely no momentum, working these huge, beautiful rounded, flowing forms, while kicking with both feet, one towards, and one away, alternately, to keep the wheel moving. Keeping both feet in action while holding your hands steady in space is something akin to ballet. BUT, not just holding those hands steady, Actually applying considerable pressure to the clay the slow it right down as well.

I could have made more progress, if I’d worked alongside somebody who knew what they were doing. All I’ve got up my sleeve is what I’ve retained from watching some good Korean throwers here in Bangsan in 2018, eight years ago, during a Moon Jar conference. Not a lot was learnt, and most of it forgotten, What I’m learning here now is invaluable, as every mistake and failure is painfully burnt into my memory banks. 

You really have to have your wits about you. I’m learning how to best approach this difficult task. The order of moves, the thickness of the clay in different parts at different stages of the lifting and opening of the evolving shape. If it were just a simple ‘vase’ shape, coming up off the wheel in a straight line up and out, like an inverted cone, it would stand up more easily, but two of these straight sided vase shapes won’t make a sphere. A sphere needs to have a small elegant foot ring, then opening up and out in a curve, away from the wheel head towards the horizontal, then curving around and back, upwards to the rim. An ‘ogee’ line of curve. A completely impossible shape to be self-supporting in soft, floppy non-plastic porcelain.  Who was the genius who first thought of this extravagance in white porcelain?

I’ve dropped a few shapes while getting it right, but I have a better appreciation of the way to best get it done now. Added to the above is the tendency for the non-plastic porcelain clay to absorb water and dry out on the surface causing your fingers to ‘stick’ or ‘grip’ every so often. All throwers have experienced this at some point, but with small pots made from plastic clay, it is recoverable. If this happens while making a moon jar, it is the end of that pot. A stretch and wobble in the form that cannot be corrected is established and there is nothing that can be done to recover it. I’ve tried. Best not to waste any time on it. Just stop, wedge it up and start again. I’ve learnt to hold a wet sponge in my hand between my fingers, and to give a little gentle squeeze more or less continuously, to keep the surface lubricated, but only just so, to avoid any ‘sticking’, but not too much so as to saturate the surface and cause the form to go weak at the knees, resulting in slumping and collapse.

Another lesson was learning to ‘condition’ the new wooden plywood batts. Fresh batts appear to be OK, and would be for every other purpose, but not for large porcelain moon jar bowls. I lost two in a row before I realised that the fresh wood didn’t allow the clay to ’stick’ to the surface well enough. So that when I flipped the bowl over, up-side-down to place it on top of the base bowl, it just peeled off the batt onto the floor. Hard lesson, well learnt. I scrubbed the batts with clay slip and saturated the surface before using them again. success two days later. But so many little set-backs, one after the other, leading to losses is disheartening. But good life lessons in perseverance!

I have also come the the conclusion that 15 kgs is my maximum limit for lifting and flipping over large bowl forms. Any more might lead to a hernia?

I’ve also learnt to be very careful in staging my drying and stiffening technique to make the best connection between the two halves. I’ve had a few crack along the joint in drying. One from not taking enough care to get the consistency and stiffness just right at the time of joining. Too soft and the shape distorts or worse, collapses. Too dry and the pot stands up to the stress of joining and paddling, but the joint can be too dry and fail in drying. I learnt to stiffen the body of the form, particularly the lower section that will have to take all the weight, while keeping the rims soft and moist for adhesion. This is not just about drying it out, but allowing the natural tendency of clay to ’set’ as some kind of thixatropia sets up between the clay particles. Letting the form sit quietly over night aids this. So making a large jar takes time and patience.

However, if the rims are kept too soft, there is a good joint, but as the pot dries, the wetter rim part shrinks more than the rest of the pot, pulls in and the curve flattens out at the mid point of the sphere, making a flat spot. I’ve seen hints of it in a few of the old Moon Jars in Museums, but also on many contemporary moon jars. A successful join, but a compromised form.

So far I’ve made beautiful round spheres with cracks in their joints after drying, as well as well joined bowls, that didn’t crack, but with less than successful round forms, lacking elegance. They both met my hammer.

Another issue that I have had to come to terms with is picking up the joined form, which is now 20 kgs or more, leather hard, slightly soft and a little bit slippery and then turning it over, up-side-down, so as to be able to trim the foot. This kind of weight should really be a two person job. But Janine’s not here! So I have developed a way to do it on my own, slowly and carefully, but it is at the limit of my capacity now at this age. I’m not the man I once was. so I have to look after myself. Fortunately I have developed a large tummy in my advancing age, and this has turned out to be very useful in supporting the shape while I lean back and very gently manoeuvre it up-side-down with my hands. Note to self! Don’t wear a shirt with buttons!

A good Moon Jar is a complex piece of work, requiring sound throwing technique, staged drying, good timing, humidity management, correct joining and compression, careful turning and slow, even drying. And all this before we even start to think about glazing and firing! Yes, there certainly is some madness! But when it works, there is poetry!

I have made about 25 good large jars now, another dozen medium sizes and about 40 smaller jars. a couple of days ago, I had my first bisque firing with half of my work in it. I used the large trolly kiln up in the other studio area, up the hill. I booked the Museums truck to drive them up there, instead of walking up there and back 20 times carrying one jar at a time! Nothing broke or chipped on the way thankfully.

When I arrived here it was the end of winter and the fields were being ploughed getting ready for the spring planting. They have to wait until may around here to be safe from the last frost. I watched them prepare the paddies, plough them twice, to mulch in the previous crop stubble, flood them and then rotary-hoe them again a couple of times. They spend a lot of time working and reworking the walls of the field by hand with a shovel. Building up the edges above water line and then patting the surface down, compressing it with the back of the shovel. It takes hours. However, they save time elsewhere, by avoiding the back breaking work of planting out the rice seedlings. Forty years ago, I was in Japan and watched women doing this back-breaking work. These days they have very cleaver machines that they load up with trays and trays of seedlings. The machine then proceeds slowly across the paddy planting 10 seedlings every second at a spacing of 200mm, apart, doing 2 metre wide rows with each pass. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. So fast and efficient.

I’ve also watched the landscape change from brown to green as the frosted, burnt pasture responded to the warmth and light. There was a tall pasture that had over wintered here, shooting up to a flowering head. At first I assumed that it was a grain crop, but soon realised, as they mowed it down, that it was a fodder crop for making hay. I walked down the lane to get a good look at it, it turned out to be rye, which takes the cold well and is over-wintered here. The smell from the paddock was so sweet, almost sickly sweet. There was so much sugar stored up in those emerging flowering heads. Harvested before it set into grain and turned to starch. They make huge round bales and plastic coat them. I’m assuming that with some residual moisture, it must be some form of silage? Stored for next winter’s fodder?

I miss being able to harvest my own vegetables from my own garden. So much so, I planted one just outside the studio. A mixture of some seedlings to get things going quickly and some seeds in-between to fill out the space as the first plants mature and are harvested. This garden isn’t really for me, as I will be gone in 6 weeks time, before most of the produce matures. I created it for the other residents that will still be here after I leave.

I have also found time to build a wood fired pizza oven. Using a lot of broken bricks that were sitting around in small piles here and there, up around the wood kiln area. I built the oven up on top of a retaining wall, just opposite my wood kiln, so we can cook pizzas while we fire through the night. Again, this little side project isn’t really for me, but my contribution to the creative community that will be living, working and creating here for years to come into the future.   At a time when a lot of the world is in so much conflict and every thing that we thought was stable is starting to come apart at the seams. I am so lucky to be an Australian, Sitting out on our own in the Pacific, we are missing out on so much of that conflict. However, when the pooh hits the propellor, nowhere is safe!

Here the Koreans are technically still at war. There are still landmine warning signs in various places around here, as there was never any really complete clean-up of the mines after the conflict ground down to a stand-off. Something they take for granted around here, but I found it quite shocking when I first encountered one of those land mine warning signs on a strand of wire, not too far from here. on something almost like some sort of old disused fence. Luckily I had my phone and its translation app to tell me to stay well away. We are only a few kms from the final DMZ line here.

As the social norms that we thought might sustain us are broken, the rule of law is degraded and there is a huge up-sweep in the far right of politics, based on miss-information, fear, lies, xenophobia, hate and miss-trust. These events can lead to some feelings of insecurity and alienation. I want to counter that, by creating things that bring people together. Every Friday, I bake bread there in my tiny studio to share with the other residents. A wholesome mixture of wholemeal and rye, that you can’t buy around here. I have also started to host a weekly pizza night in my little space. Last week we also shared a kimchi a pancake night, made by the lady next door, using my huge bag of kimchi that I was given when I arrived here, while I contributed banana pancakes with a little ice cream and cinnamon on top.  I have also made rock cakes to share at morning tea and marmalade, as such a thing doesn’t exist here. I like to have a little on my homemade toast, whenever I feel a little twinge of nostalgia for home.

I want to help create a sharing, supporting community out of these individual artists. We are mostly here for a short time, so there is a constantly changing group dynamic. I replaced someone. Another person left after I was here just one month, I only met her once! Two more artists will leave at the end of this month, and I will leave and the end of next. 

However ephemeral life is, I want to leave a positive trace behind – at least for a while. I want to leave this artists residency in a better, more inclusive, comfortable and fun creative state than it was when I arrived. 

One pizza at a time!

One Month of Poetry and Madness

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Sometimes I feel that I must be mad to be here. Relocating to a foreign land where I don’t know the language, or many people at 74, just to satisfy my curiosity about an ancient ceramic iconic white jar ceramic form. The result of which will most likely have no bearing on my career at all.  As, while I’m here studying Moon Jars with some intensity, there is a show of Moon Jars on in Sydney from which I was excluded, even though I have shown my Moon Jar inspired forms in that gallery in the past, and sold them there. But for some reason, unknown to me, my work isn’t thought to be good enough or appropriate for this show. I can’t pretend that I’m not feeling left out from a show I feel I should have been represented in.

But shit happens and life goes on. If this is the worst that can happen to me, I’m incredibly lucky! I know that I am!

I also know that stuff happens to us all at times. We just have to knuckle down and get on with it. Life goes on. Next?

I’ve been here in the Porcelain Village Residency for one month now. Actually, it was one month last Monday, but I was too busy to write anything down till now. In fact, as of now, its only one more week and I’ll be half way. Tempus fujit! This is my 10th visit to this place. A decade of my life circling and returning, just like the moon and earth. The attraction always pulling me back. I always think that this will be my last visit, but…

I’ve just made my 40th Moon Jar, so that’s good. Actually, I’ve made more than that, but smashed a few up. Especially the earlier ones. As they were not up to scratch. They got slaked them down for re-use, as the unique sericite clay here is very special and hard won, so not to be abused or wasted on inferior pieces. If there is no hint of poetry, then they get the hammer. My most important pottery tool is not my hand crafted stainless profile tool, that I would be lost without, nor my kidney shaped modified special throwing sponge, or my razor Sharpe tungsten turning tool. No! My most important tool is my hammer as it turns out. Can’t allow any feelings of attachment for a bad form. No matter how much effort I put in to it. Even if has taken 3 days to make. If there is no joy or love conveyed in the form, no sense of warmth and communication. If there is no sense of flowing, complete lyrical form and balance. If it isn’t speaking to me. In essence, no poetry, then where is my hammer?

I have to feel proud of the pots that I make and take responsibility for them, as many eyes are on me, simply because I’m the foreigner here. The only non-Asian resident. It could be said of me that I shouldn’t really be here making my weird tributary jars based on the traditional Moon Jar form. Which aren’t really Moon Jars at all, as I’m not Korean, and don’t fully understand the culture. I have been told that there was some ‘chat’ online by ‘important’ people, that for ‘others’ to even think of making something and call it a Moon Jar, is some sort of cultural imperialism and miss-appropriation of cultural identity and some sort of theft of an iconic national ceramic form? 

I haven’t seen the discussion, as I’m not on any social media, but it did make me think about what I’m doing here and why. I interrogate myself fairly often about how I live and what I consume, and how I might be more conscientious about my choices. I quizzed myself deeply over a period of some months, before I eventually applied for this position. For several reasons, not only the cultural theft angle, but also the carbon debt incurred in international flights. Added to that the fact that my presence here has robbed some young and talented artist of a place here and a chance to learn, go on and make important work. I don’t brush this off, or take it lightly. I was quite conflicted. Should I be here?

What helped me to decide positively was the remark, made last year, from the director of the Porcelain Museum in the nearby town, when he saw what I was making back in Australia. We exchange emails periodically. In my early exploration of this iconic form. I was calling what I was making an ‘homage to the Big White Jar’. As I’ve always had a fascination for them, but could never bring myself to make a ‘copy’ of one – even for my own use and satisfaction. But after a decade of visits here, getting more deeply connected to this place through its special 800 year sericite history. As it was the stuff of the soil here that brought me here way back then, as part of my 15 year, ‘5 Stones’ ceramic adventure. 

The Museum Director said to me that what I was doing was different from anything else being done there, and that it would make an interesting addition to the canon. So there was an invitation to follow up on. “Why don’t you apply to come and do that kind of work here?”

Because I’m from Australia, I’m in the opposite hemisphere. I live in the opposite seasons, I live apparently up-side-down on the bottom of the world. It got me thinking that the way to look at the Big White Jar, was from the opposite point of view. So I made them black with a coating of black slip. The dark side of the Moon Jar?

Because I have been doing a lot of sgraffito over the last few years, and because Koreans have a long history of the same technique, which they call ‘Buncheong Ware’, sgraffito seemed appropriate! The significant difference for me, as an antipodean, is that I do it in reverse. The Korean wares are made in dark clay and white slip is applied. I was making white pots and applying black slip then carving back to create my images. I think that it might have been this that caught The Directors eye? Who Knows? I don’t!

Emboldened by this positive response though, I decided to apply for this residency. As I understand it, The Director of the Porcelain Museum is not on the board here, or on the committee for the selection of artists for this residency. So I had to convince several other academic and cultural advisors who actually are the ones making the decision. I was quite unsure as to my suitability for this placement, as the application form clearly stated that applicants should ideally be under 40 years of age, and have at least a 4 year degree level. ie masters or better. I fail the first part, but fortunately I was OK on the last bit. I also had to supply 10 images of recent work, not made in an educational institution, or as part of any course of study.  I could tick most of the boxes.

Now since I’ve arrived and started work here, more things have transpired. The Director of the museum has offered me a show in the Museum’s Art Gallery. He feels confident that I will make significant work while I’m here. No pressure! I feel a little awkward about this, as other residents don’t get this offer. They get to show their work here in the Porcelain Village, where the residency is situated. We have a smaller on-site gallery here specifically for our use. The Porcelain Village Residency Gallery. I feel that it has created some sort of barrier between us. Why am I getting special treatment? And I can’t answer that, but I carry a twinge of guilt about it, even though I have made no overtures to be treated differently.

The Director has explained to me that because of the smaller, clean firing, low smoke, wood fired kiln that I built for the Porcelain Museum 2 years ago. There has been some interest in this aspect of the Museum activity. There are now 5 other versions of this kiln built, or in the process of, in Korea as a result, with more in the planning stage. He told me (through his ‘Chat GPT’ interpretation software) that it has had an effect on how some people view the institution now. I assumed that he was talking about the environmental aspects of cleaner wood firing? The Director has his own version of the kiln at his home studio, and has recently had a show of 300 wood fired porcelain bowls in a posh big city Art Gallery. So he is fully onboard with the concept of heavily reduced porcelain created without much, if any, smoke.

He intimated that the fired results from the wood kiln that I built here are significantly different from the traditional kilns. Heavier reduced, with quite a sweet grey/black carbon inclusion that works perfectly against the white porcelain, showing subtle hints of pink to orange flashing, and yet these effects are produced with virtually no smoke. Not many people have seen work quite like this around here before now apparently. 

Two years ago, when I built the kiln. I fired it using the local pine that everyone uses around here, and managed to fire it with a little smoke, however, keeping a clean, smoke free reduction using pine took a lot of concentration, and a lot of effort. I suggested at that time, that my kiln would fire cleaner with the use of hard wood instead of pine. Eyebrows were raised! So we sourced some local oak tree timber. This is not considered suitable for kiln firing here and is therefore a lot cheaper, and as it turned out, It worked very well. I also suggested that the local Acacia species that grows on the hill sides around the pottery, in fact, right outside my studio window, would also be worth trying, but this suggestion has not been taken up – yet!

The use of local oak instead of pine, has allowed us to virtually eliminate smoke, while still creating beautiful reduced effects on the porcelain surface and a lovely ash deposit. These are aesthetic qualities not usually embraced in the traditional Moon Jar aesthetic. In fact there is some push-back from conservative thinkers about this black surface on white porcelain. The Shock Of The New!  They’ll get used to it! 

It is quite lovely in its own right. Not the usual traditional look, but still very beautiful!  I’d like to see some of my large white jars come out of the kiln like this. The Director has encouraged me to follow this route, rather than the black slip train of thought that I started with. So I am now making work that I hope will come out largely flashed with grey to black carbon inclusions, but without slip. Time will tell.

He tells me that as I have created the conditions for this new surface quality to be created. This surface belongs to me when I’m here, so I should make use of it and take delight in making my version of the iconic Korean Moon Jar with an Australian wood fired surface.

So I’m set free from my worries about cultural theft and imperialism. I’m invited, even encouraged, to follow my own interests and ways of working, thinking and making. while adapting to local materials and fuels in my efforts to make the big white jar of my crazy dreams. Whether or not there is, or will be, any poetry in these pots of mine is yet to be discovered. The hammer will decide.

When I arrived here at the end of winter. I was wearing a T shirt, a shirt and a jumper, and feeling a little bit under-dressed. Now a month on, the weather is changing weekly, even daily. One month on, I’m now down to bare feet, shorts and a singlet. I’m told that the rainy season is about to start, half way through June through to half way through August, it will rain almost every day and the humidity will be 100% for most of July. Nothing will dry, everything starts to go mouldy. The only way to dry washing reliably is to use a dryer.

I’ve taken this onboard and decided to make the largest size of jars first and then work down in size to the smaller sizes last. This is totally the opposite way around for me at this time. Usually, I’d prefer to make a lot of smaller pieces first up, so as to get a feel for the sericite clay bodies that they offer here, and get to learn all about their shortcomings. Like photo-sensitivity – cracking if exposed to direct sunlight! Sounds impossible, but it is true. I’ve had to change my habits a bit to cope. The first one that I put out in the direct sunlight one afternoon, split open like a ripe fruit! It isn’t some hitherto unknown life-form, just that if the clay is exposed to direct sunlight, the clay dries out more on that side too quickly, and hair-line cracks form. Sometimes large cracks! This stuff isn’t clay of course. I have to keep reminding myself. It’s ground up rock dust that appears to be plastic in the same way as clay, but actually isn’t. 

Amazingly, I can manage to throw 10 kg lumps of the stuff into 450mm dia. bowls with a small foot, two of which are joined together, one on top of the other, in what potters call ‘top-hatting’. Once joined by pinching the two parts together, I then use the hammer and anvil technique, incorporating a wooden block on the inside of the form and a wooden paddle on the outside, to beat the joint together, compressing it. This should make a secure joint if done well. Or, a horribly distorted wobbly pot if not. It takes a little bit of nuanced practise to get it joined securely, but not altered from its intended form.

A bowl of 450mm. is considered to be the ideal size to throw, or so the potters around here tell me. This should give a finished jar of approx. 400mm dia. The size of some of the ancient archetypes. So that is what I’m doing. 

Throwing larger lumps of 15 kgs can result in a larger jar to impress people. I’ve had a go at it and lost a couple to slumping at the end of the throwing process, this stuff is rather floppy and doesn’t hold up well. I have completed one larger jar of 550 mm dia. to my own satisfaction.

Making really big ware is for the younger testosterone driven youngsters who need to impress to get noticed. I used to do it, but I’m neither young, nor needing to make an impression any more.

These days, I just want the satisfaction of making something elegant and beautiful that I can be proud of. Because, lets face it. All these pots will be staying here. I won’t be carrying a dozen 15kg jars home in my hand luggage on Jetstar!

The other residents here, Museum staff, and Korean friends will be the beneficiaries. My contract states that the Museum has the rights to the first choice of anything that I make here to add to their collection. After that…

I don’t know if my work will be for sale at the exhibition at the end of my stay? I haven’t counted those chickens yet!

I’m slowly filling all the shelving available to me in my studio, then the corridor outside, and finally in the kiln room. 

It’s a race against the on-coming monsoon rains, to get all the big work done and more or less dried in time, before the rainy season. At home I know my clay and its short-comings, as well as its strengths. I have a certain confidence with it. I have a tendency towards the ‘go fast and break stuff’ sort of work schedule. I do usually stop before I break stuff though, but I do get a lot done! Here however, everything is different, from photo-sensitivity, through kidney shape warping if there is a breeze blowing through the studio. and there usually is, because there are no windows in the studio. Just big doors at both ends, so there is usually quite some breeze flowing through. I’ve learnt to leave the freshly potted big jars on the wheel, running on slow to keep the pot rotating and keeping it from drying out on one side only while the initial drying takes place. Also Being a 200# mesh fine porcelain paste body, it has a capacity to blow up if heated too quickly, and then to crack later on in the firing if fired too fast! Temperamental!

If any of these big jars actually survive, I’ll be proud of them.

Poetry and Madness, Korean Moon Jar Residency

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I have been in Korea for a couple of weeks now. I have been awarded a 3 month Artist in Residency position at the Porcelain Research Centre in Yanggu. This is the site of the original deposits of sericite porcelain that have been in use more of less consistently for the past 700 years. Most importantly, it is the source of the porcelain clay that was used by the old potters to make the famous Moon Jars of antiquity.

The little town of Bangsan has one of the original sericite deposits, worked since at least the 1300’s. It also has an ancient kiln site and a very large and modern Museum, dedicated to the local porcelain history. It is this Museum and Porcelain Research Centre that makes this place so accessible and special, but there is also a small porcelain village just out of town, in a little valley of it’s own. Well, along with a few farms as well. It isn’t isolated. Everyone here in the village is an artist working with a view to the history of the site but making their own contemporary work.

There are a spread of residential houses/buildings over the site incorporating a studio on the ground floor and living quarters above. These are ideal for a family to live and work, but there is also a large new boomerang shaped complex incorporating 6 smaller, self-contained artists studios with a tiny apartment on a small mezzanine above. I’m located in one of this group, These apartments are small, so quite ideal for a single artist.

In the centre of the two wings are located the kiln room and the clay processing room. These are shared spaces. With 3 studios on either side. Each self-contained studio/flat, has its own kitchen, washing machine, toilet/shower room. As I’m a thrower, I have two electric wheels at one end in front of the glass wall leading out onto a very wide verandah. There is a large work table and banks of shelves/storage racks on either side of the room. It turns out that I am the only ’thrower’ here at the moment.

There are 2 pug mills in the central clay room and a slab roller. There is one 100mm dia vacuum pug for the studio fine clay body, and the other is a shimpo style barrel mixer, vacuum pug, not unlike a ‘peter pugger’ only fully stainless steel construction. This is for anybody to mix up or re-process their own special clay body. After use it is stripped down and left empty for the next person. It only needs 4 bolts to completely strip it down for cleaning. There is no screen for the vacuum, so that makes it so much faster, It’s such a clever little machine. I actually have one of these machines a home in my own studio, so I’m fully up to speed with it. I have been able to help one of the other residents with the strip down and re-assemble process already, as I have developed a couple of time saving tricks to make the job very quick.

The kiln room has 3 electric kilns, small, medium and large. There is a space for a humungous gas kiln that hasn’t been delivered yet, as this is the first year of occupation in this 6 studio complex, the mechanics of running this building are still being developed. There is a large gas kiln available for use in another building 200 metres up the hill a little way, that is shared by all residents of the village. 

Up there also, there are 5 wood fired kilns. A couple of 5 chambered climbing kilns built from raw clay bricks made on site, in the full traditional manner, plus an anagama and a very old fashioned traditional earthenware temp kiln for the firing of traditional ‘ongi pots. There is also one of my single chambered twin bourry box wood kilns that I built here onsite 2 years ago as a paid job. Because it is the smallest of all the kilns here. It is fired the most often, simply because it is easier to fill and fire by a smaller crew, or even by just one person. Whereas the large 5 chambered climbing kilns require a village effort. 

There are 13 residents artists here in Bangsan at the present time. Local Korean artists can apply to come and work here for periods of 3 to 5 years. Whereas international residents like myself, can apply for periods of 1 to 3 months. However, when I applied, the paperwork that arrived only had the 3 month option, with a possibility of another 3 month extension. I’m OK with just the 3 months. It is a little longer than I might have chosen, but I will get a lot done. In fact, because I’m here for 3 months, I’m actually starting a small vegetable garden just outside my studio for salad greens, lettuces, shallots and radishes etc.

The other residents will get most of the benefit, as I will be going just as it comes into productivity. There are two other residents here in this building that are keen to share in the garden work and rewards.

I had only been here for 2 days, when I was asked to go to a wood kiln firing in the nearby city of Yanggu.

This firing was in a kiln that I built here during one of last years 2 trips. I have been to Korea a few times now. In fact this is my 9th trip here. I always make sure to include a stay here in Bangsan/Yanggu in every trip. Although Seoul has a lot, great galleries etc. It is this small place that attracts me. Actually, it is always the very reason for the trip in every case. I discovered this special place on my first trip here back in 2016. I was searching for all the places in the world where porcelain was first discovered from first principals, by digging local sericite mica minerals from the ground and firing them. My search eventually lead me here. And I guess, that a tiny part of me has never really left.

I get invited back here once or sometimes twice a year to speak at conferences, take part in exhibitions, do demonstrations, and generally act as an international voice in the porcelain research conversation. As, I appear to be one of only very few people in the world who have gone out and foraged for unique local sources of porcelain raw materials. I suppose that I am very lucky in that I stumbled upon the local weathered Aplite version of porcelain stone around here and was able to decipher what it was and grind it up to make a single stone, porcelain body. The Director of the Porcelain Museum here in Bangsan, is one other of those very few people who has the same interest. We are porcelain brothers.

If I am the keynote speaker at the conference, as has happened twice, then I get my airfare paid for me. Which is nice but i would come anyway. I always come to do some job or other. It’s always work, some kind of work, to give a workshop, to speak at a conference, or build a kiln. This is the first time that I have come to just sit and enjoy making some pots for my own satisfaction. I intend to get some deeper insights into the very specific Korean Culture of Moon Jars. If I can make anything meaningful, I can show my work in the Art Gallery attached to the Museum at the end.

Because I arrived here in Korea at night, after an all day flight. I had to stay in Seoul overnight. I made use of this by staying for two days and visiting the four Museums that hold Moon Jars in their collections. The one in the National Museum is the best. A really lovely example. Next best is the Bernard Leach/Lucy Rie jar in the British Museum. I’ve visited it twice over the years, and although not quite as perfect in form. It is a much better example for me, as it has a couple of chips on the rim and foot that let me see inside the clay body composition. I really learnt more from this jar than the others. My Lovely Friend, Anne was in London recently, so I asked her to take some close-up images of the chips for me. Thank you Anne!

As it happens, there is a conference on Monday in a big city half way between here and Seoul, a few hours away. The Museum Director told me about it a week before I left to come here. It is titled ‘Clean and Smokeless Wood Firing’. I said, “that sounds like something that I’d be very interested in attending! Are you going? and if so can I get a life with you?. His answer was, “You are the keynote speaker!” So I quickly had to write a paper to explain my recent research in Korea, in a ‘PowerPoint Presentation’. Not too hard for me to do, as I know the subject very well.

I suppose that The Director is using the conference to promote his Museum and Research Facility and the work being carried out here by the staff and artist residents?

I really like the people here and have made so many friends, there is always a bit of initial bowing, then a hug, and finally a lot of chatter, most of which escapes me. However, if there is something that I need to know, out come the phones and translation apps. A conversation here for me is spent talking into my phone and listening to other peoples phones for the response. So different from my first trips to Japan 40 years ago, when I only had a paper dictionary. A conversation in progress

That first firing went very well, we spent 36 hours doing an extended stoneware firing with mostly unglazed pots, building up carbon inclusions and ash deposits on the fire face. I’m much too old to be staying awake for that length of time, I headed for bed at 11pm. and surfaced again at 4 am. to allow others to get a bit of sleep. The results turned out to be very good. I am always relieved first and foremost, before I’m pleased. I carry a lot of responsibility just simply because I designed and built the thing, and every one thinks that I can perform magic. There is no magic. I’m not gifted or special, I just have a lot of experience with these kinds of kilns. 

Last year, I got a phone call late in the evening in Australia, it was from one of the residents here in Bangsan who was firing my wood kiln and it had stopped going up in temperature. They were perplexed, so one of them rang me on FaceTime video. She said that the kiln wasn’t going up and that The Museum Director – Mr Jung, told them to ring me for advice. She said that he told them that this had happened when I was there once, and they asked me to come and look. Mr Jung told them that I just walked up to the kiln and performed some sort of magic and it started to go up again straight way. We need to know your magic please!

I am here to learn something about moon jars. A  three month, in-depth, infusion of Korean Culture, food, language and Moon Jars. I set to straight away have almost completed 9 so far, I still have to turn the feet on the last 4. It’s coming along OK for the initial attempts. I have 5 others finished, decorated and waiting for the kiln for a bisque firing. It’s quite full-on, but a great experience!

The Poetry and Madness of a Moon Jar Facination

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I’ve been making of big round jars influenced by Korean ‘Moon Jars’. I’ve been fascinated by them for years, ever since I traveled and studied in Korea when I got to see them up close in the National Museum and also in potters workshops. I tried my hand at making my own version when I came back and have dabbled in making something inspired by them since.

Recently I taught a couple of workshops on the techniques that are used to create big round jars. After the workshops were over, I kept on going.

In the workshops, I made it easier and more achievable for everyone involved, by setting the starting point at 1.5 kgs. Nearly everyone enrolled in the workshops could manage this weight of clay. A lot of nice pots were made, but nothing too big. The more advanced throwers, were encouraged to progress in 1 kg increments, some reaching up to 4 or 5 kgs. Excellent! So encouraging for everyone in the room there to see that develop. However, we all progressed at our own rate.

After the workshops were over, I kept on practising. I worked my way up from 4 kgs to 5, 6 and 7, then 8 kgs. over a week or two. I could feel my skill level, confidence and success rate increasing and as I focussed on the end point of the big, open, wide bowl, that becomes 1/2 of the finished big round form. I made over 40 of these multi-kilo half-pot bowl forms and then a day later, I flipped one bowl over onto the other half, and assembled a (hopefully) beautiful sphere shape. As this is the technique used by the ancient potters.  Finally turning a small foot to give the form lift and elegance. Some of my attempts were more successful than others. A few were pretty good, but not sufficiently elegant enough. but that is what keeps me trying.

I’ve sold most of last years jars, so I’ve been keeping on with this now for another 5 weeks and made good progress. Well, as far as I’m concerned, I have. Others may differ! I haven’t ever been, and never will be, a ‘gun’ thrower. I never wanted to be. However, when I was younger and stronger, I did make large jars for a few years, and taught big pot throwing workshops, but these were mostly always in terracotta, using the coil and throw technique, a very different technique and medium. Those pots were all garden pots. That technique was ideal for someone like me who needed to take my time. To work slowly and intuitively. I’m never quite sure what I’m doing and if I’m making progress. I need time to absorb and evaluate. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I struggle. I’m not a performer. I hate the lime light. I need to make my mistakes in private. Learn from them and try again. I wish I was talented or gifted like some of my peers. But I’m not and I’ve come to be OK with that. I’m a slogger, who battles on and learns slowly through my misadventures. Slow learner! But I get there.

I did eventually make a stoneware, vitreous,  water tank for the house, that is still in use today. 40 years old and it hasn’t rusted out like all the other old tin tanks!

Other than that, I’ve always made small delicate porcelain bowls and other domestic wares. But now, after a decade and 8 visits to Korea, and much thought and study. I have, at this late stage in my life, become interested in the ancient cultural pottery form of the traditional Moon Jar. So exquisite, so impressive, so big, yet subtle. Fat, round, fecund and feminine. I love them. I love the poetry inherent in the form. They are so romantic and impossible! But also scary! Such a challenge.

Who could have imagined making the impossible? A huge, possibly 18 to 20 kilo jar, out of the most difficult and unpromising non-plastic material like fine white porcelain? Someone hundreds of years ago. Not only that. But they threw those impossible forms on a wooden kick wheel with very little momentum! This is the work of Masters.

Moon Jars weren’t called Moon Jars way back in time when they were made. The name is a recent addition. Originally, they were simply called ‘big white jars’. They were made exclusively for the Emperor and his entourage. They are said to embody the main elements of Joseon Dynasty Confucian philosophy, frugality, austerity and purity. I can identify with the first two.

They were eye wateringly expensive in their time. The clay was mined in and around the tiny village of Bangsan, way up in the mountains. A remote place, hundreds of kilometres away from Seoul. Where the only activity was growing rice and vegetables along the river flats – that is until the porcelain stone was discovered. 

Information board from the Yanggu Porcelain Museum.

Over time, an industry developed in mining, processing, testing and then shipping the pure ‘sericite’ stone, all the way to Seoul. There was no direct road route. So in the wet season, the clay was shipped down the river, on a very long, circuitous route, around and around, from one river to another, and eventually across the country, to Seoul. In the dry season, it was carried by porters overland, which was more expensive and took even longer. It made the production of ‘Court’ porcelain very exclusive, highly desirable and very expensive. Such pots were not for the general population. Not even merchant use. This was the realm of royalty, it’s privileges and excesses.

Records show that the clay, actually weathered sericite stone, for the making of white porcelain in Korea has been mined for the past 650 years, since 1371 in the one location. This unique porcelain stone was mined in an area/county called ‘Yanggu’. Right in the centre of Korea, and not too far from the current DMZ. Luckily for me. It is located on the southern side of the border. Who knows what is on the other side of the hill? Other than land mines! I have come across notices on fences up there, written in Korean, that when translated using my phone app. Read ‘Beware of land mines’. Do not cross!

I’ve visited this place many times over the past decade. Collected geological samples. Had them analysed, studied and compared the stones with others from different sites in Korea and also from sites in other countries. China, Japan, Cornwall and Australia. I have collected over a dozen different porcelain stones over the years, from 5 different countries. I’ve examined them, worked with them, ground them up and made porcelain bodies from them. Thrown them and turned them. Eventually, when I had achieved some success in this epic 15 years struggle to understand ’sericite’, I had a major exhibition of this Artistic Research in Watters Gallery back in 2017, that show was 15 years in the making, and some of those special, unique, pieces of my hand made, single stone, ground porcelain ended up in the New South Wales Art Gallery collection as well as in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. I’m really thrilled about that!

Korean sericite stones.   3 jars constructed from broken shards, collected from the old pottery studio ashes after the fire. 

Image from the Powerhouse Museum collection.

I’m thinking that I might keep on making these big round jars for some time. Until I’m satisfied that I really understand them. Eventually, if I’m lucky, I may end up with enough good ones to get an exhibition together. I love the form. It’s so full, round and generous. The Koreans revere them. Every potter there has a go at it. It’s a perennial project in Ceramic Art School courses. Some students continue on and make a name for themselves as Moon jar makers. There are a lot of very beautiful pots out there made by younger highly skilled, competent makers. I was lucky to spend a week watching Mr Chul Shin making his version of Moon Jars. Mr Chul has a very distinctive studio in the icheon Pottery village.

He told me through an interpreter, that it was not until he had made a thousand that he became confident.

These jars have become Korean cultural icons. It wasn’t always so, When Bernard Leach visited Korea in the early part of last century, he found one for sale in a bric-a-brac shop for a few hundred won. Today they sell for 4.5 million US dollars. His bargain purchase jar is now housed these days in the British Museum. But spent most of it’s life in Britain in the home of Lucie Rie on loan from Leach, until her death. 

My artist friend Anne was in the British Museum yesterday and sent me some images back. I have been there twice to see this jar myself over the years, but it wasn’t until I started to get seriously interested in them and started to try and understand them and make them that I wanted to learn more. I have looked at Anne’s images quite closely now and can see so much more that I hadn’t taken in, in my previous visits there. Images by Anne Spencer.

Isn’t it interesting how we travel through life in a kind of blur, not really taking in all that we see. Just impressions. It takes intense scrutiny to really see with intent. I know that I can only spend a couple of hours in any gallery or museum, before I start to develop Museum blindness or fatigue. I need to go out and sit outside. Go for a coffee or have lunch, then I can go back in and look for another hour. Then that’s it. If I stay longer, I’ve learnt that I’m just wasting my time. I need a couple of days or more, to really see the parts of a museum that really interest me. To really take it in! Maybe it’s just me? My limited ability to really see and understand? My acuity and skills of perception are apparently stuck in first gear.

I learnt more from Anne’s photos this morning than I did in my previous 2 visits to London to see the actual jar. The difference being that I am now totally involved in trying to really ’see’ them completely, to understand them, as I try to make something of my own, that has that unique special quality. My insights have expanded exponentially. This is directly related to my attempts to re-created the fullness of the form on the wheel – and failing, then doing it all over again. Slowly burning in those necessary synapse connections and pathways.

I have to admit that I really still don’t quite know what it is that I need to know. I haven’t quite ‘got it’ yet. Maybe another 40 ‘halves’ will get me closer. Half a tonne of clay may not be enough. I’m feeling more and more like I will need another half tonne and another 40 goes to really get to grips with it?

Looking closely at Anne’s Images, I can now see more of the subtleties that I missed before. I’m taken particularly with the rough texture of the body, the inclusions of organics that have burnt out. The subtle crazing where the glaze is just a bit thicker. I can also make out the slight differences in the atmospheric body and glaze colour development across the pot due to differences in the firing. I’m suspecting at this stage that this pot was possibly fired in an oxidising atmosphere early on in the firing, then going through a period of neutral atmosphere, eventually ending up in a reducing atmosphere towards the end of the firing. That’s my guess. Based on my knowledge of how ancient multi-chamber kilns were often fired.

I’ll only know once I’ve given it a go with my own clay and kiln, then I can re-asses and maybe try something else. And for what really? Just the academic reward of figuring some thing so esoteric out to a level of my own satisfaction. If I ever get a show together. I’m prepared to witness people walking past them and not taking much of it in. Just as I have done all my life up until now!

I’m fully aware that studying just one pot will not tell me enough. I need to see as many as I can to make a more balanced judgement. So far I’ve seen 3 in real life. not enough. There are about 20 or so of them out there, but they are all spread all over the world. The one I saw in the Yanggu Museum two years ago was more reduced, with the glaze showing a pale limpid celadon where it was thicker around the rim. Unfortunately, the only photo I could get was under a very yellow artificial light, so the jar looks rather blond.

However, in the end it doesn’t really matter how many I can see and study. What is most important, is that I can make something that I’m happy with and which represents my relationship with the this iconic piece of pottery. It’s hard to define the ‘feeling’ of a pot. Its neigh impossible to recreate that ‘feeling’ in ceramics. Principally because it is so ephemeral, so always changing with the light and with my moods. Always varied and different. It’s not the destination any more really, it’s all about the journey. This is the madness, looking for poetry in a ceramic form.

I’m also very aware that it is important not to make some sort of poor copy, or worse, a pastiche. I need to develop my own Australian version of this big round fat form. I’m working on that. Janine and I have been treating the surface of these full, round forms with black and white slips, then carving through them sgraffito style, to create our own version of the form. Something that relates to the original and shows it some respect and honour, but is in essence some thing of mine too. At the moment, I’m making them all black with black slip, then carving back to relieve a pale moon in the night sky. A moon within the moon jar form. Working in reverse like this came to me as I pondered the fact that we are here in the opposite hemisphere, up-side down and with the seasons reversed. So a reversal of the aesthetic seemed appropriate. I might call the show “a view from below”, or maybe not?

‘Howling at the Moon’  –  Jar.    A self portrait!

‘Autumn Moon’ – Jar.    A jar for this season right now.

We are working collaboratively on some of the forms, and others I’m finishing on my own. I am certainly doing all the throwing of these recent forms. It’s a great journey and we have no idea where it is all going, and that’s good.  I like that.

Nothing is ever finished, nothing is perfect and nothing lasts.

Back home from Korea

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I’m back home from my work in Korea. I managed to drop a firebrick on my foot on the 3rd day. I couldn’t wear a shoe after that, as the big toe had swollen up so much, such that I had to wear a plastic ‘flip-flop’ thong to keep working. I went to the local convenience store in the village and bought alcohol disinfectant spray for cleaning the toe, over-sized bandaids, gauze bandage and medical tape. I was amazed that such a tiny village shop had everything that I needed.  
The next day, the local government health clinic was open and my friends took me to the clinic to see the doctor. I needed them to translate for me. The doctor told me that I had kept it very clean and to try and keep it elevated, not to walk on it too much and that if it started to throb or get red. I should come back ASAP. As a precaution, he prescribed and also issued me with 2 different antibiotics, for 3 times a day, enough for 10 days. I don’t like to take any antibiotics if I don’t absolutely need to, but I certainly didn’t want to end up with medical complications while in a foreign country, so I took them.  I didn’t want to risk getting toe-main poisoning and it spreading up my leg to Knee-monia and possibly even dick-theria.The doctor offered me an X-ray, but I assured him that I could still bend the toe. I had to demonstrate that for him, so that he was satisfied. 

My friend got out his credit card to pay, but there was no charge!!!! I’m a foreigner here. I don’t pay taxes here. I should pay for such a terrific service. Korea is an amazing place!

My foot was still swollen, and I was still wearing a plastic flip-flop thong on my foot right up until I left Korea. I even had to attend the official opening of the exhibition in my formal black thong. The nail has since died and come off. I’m so lucky that I have such good friends and that it wasn’t worse.
The garden has grown such a lot while I was away, and badly needs a lot of weeding. Apparently there was a lot of rain and the temperature was quite mild. So plenty of late autumn growth. I got stuck into the weeding straight away, just an hour at a time each day. Weeding always involves such a lot of bending. I’m of an age where this is not so comfortable any more. So I space out my efforts, I didn’t want to over do it. 
The second day, I decided to wear knee pads so that I could get closer to the weeds, to minimise the bending. I also wore light gloves to save my fingers. So I am learning to change my old habits to make living here the way that I have so far, and want to continue to do into the future, a more achievable prospect. This is a really hands-on life style, doing almost everything the old fashioned way, by hand, honouring local gardening lore and organic traditions with green environmental knowhow/theories.  A permanent garden/orchard/vegetable patch, including chickens, all inter-woven and based on sustainable living principals, but with a nod to modern conveniences where necessary, like a cultivator and a mower. 
We can still pick all of our salad lunches and our nightly dinner from the garden each evening, it’s just that the flavours have changed to winter forage now. We have all the usual winter greens, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beetroot, cabbage, pumpkin and kohlrabi. We cook a lot of vegetable stir fry, tofu, okonomiyaki, Japanese style cabbage pan cake, baked mixed vegetables, and cauliflower au gratin etc. We have also just celebrated the start of the cold winter season with an old fashioned baked dinner. Our first red meat meal since last winter.

  Other than weeding the garden, there is also a lot of mowing, so an hour or so of that each day too. The garden work fills half the day. I’m using the electric ride-on mower for the bigger areas that have become deep in luscious growth. But I also use the electric strimmer for all the edges where the ride on can’t get to. It’s a good feeling to know that all the work is being achieved powered by sunshine these days instead of fossil fuels. Janine fills in the gaps with the electric push mower, to get in under the branches of the fruit trees and other similarly appropriate places for that mower.


We have worked hard at planning and finally becoming a fully solar electric household. We started back in 2007, when the cost of solar panels finally became affordable for us. When I was a teenager, the only solar panels were to be found on space craft and satellites. We’ve come a long way and Australia can be proud of the world famous, ground breaking research into refining solar panel technology done by Professor Green at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. We have slowly increased our solar PV over the years, until now we have 17kW of PV panels and two 15 kWh batteries. Sufficient to charge 2 electric cars, run the house and pottery workshop, Fire our electric kilns and if carefully managed, also selling the excess back to the grid. Although we try to minimise our exports, as we only get paid 5 cents per kWh. It’s better to use it all ourselves. We haven’t paid a power bill since 2007, and spend more money on petrol for things like the chain saw and fire fighting pumps than we do on our Plug-In Hybrid car.
Now that the garden and grounds are back under control, I’m also back in the pottery, making pots again, for the other half of each day, making again is fun and half of my existence. My start back on the potters wheel was delayed by a day, as the pug mill had seized up from being left for too long without use. I had to hand scrape the clay from the barrel nozzle and take out the vacuum screens to remove hardened clay from the mesh.  Quicker and easier than a complete strip down, but still time consuming. It somehow feels like a bit of a waste of time, but any other option is far worse, I’m so grateful to my friends who passed on their old pug mills to me after the fire. You know who you are. Thank You! I’m very grateful to be so lucky to own my very old, re-furbished, Venco pug mills. 

The next day I’m back on the wheel throwing perfectly de-aired and beautifully mixed plastic clay. My old wrists are too worn out to hand wedge all my clay any more. I did manage a lot of hand wedging for the first year back at work here, during lock down. I couldn’t buy a new Venco as they were out of production, and the large 100mm. model is still un-available! I don’t know where I get the energy and enthusiasm to keep on working like this into my older years, other friends and colleagues have retired, but I was determined not to let the 3rd bush fire in 50 years and loss of another pottery workshop stop me. I’m still here and still creating the things that I love. So out of desperation and necessity, I hand wedged my clay to my lasting detriment. My ageing wrists have never really recovered. Even throwing slowly on the kick wheel, causes just a little bit of a twinge, so I have to modify my hand position slightly to cope. We have a few Shimpo electric potters wheels, mostly used for our weekend workshops, that run on our solar power, but I really prefer the old ‘Leach’ treadle style kick wheel for all the smaller domestic pots.

Winter brings on the citrus crop, so we start the season by making 2 batches of marmalade, lemon, lemonade and lime marmalade and then tangelo and navel orange marmalade. The Seville oranges aren’t ready yet. They come on later in the season. They make the very best marmalade.

It’s hard to believe, but today, in winter, at the end of the first week of June, I picked a ripe red tomato. We still have self sown tomato plants flowering. We have had ripe tomatoes in June before. It all depends on the severity of the frosts. At this stage we have had a frost during the week, but because the vegetable garden is fully netted to keep out the birds, that netting seems to just take the edge off the frosts, allowing us to still harvest tomatoes so late in the season.

It’s so good to be home again! We have a quotidian flock of wild wood ducks, that have decided to take up residence on the front lawn, sometimes up to 30 or so of them. They seem to like it here. Plenty of grass to eat and 4 dams to explore. Why wouldn’t they? They were probably all born and raised here over the years. They do pooh all over the lawn, so we have to watch where we step and wipe our feet at lot. We have a shoes-off household, so no problem about the house, but a lot of pooh gets tramped into the pottery workshop when we have weekend workshops and open days.

If this is my biggest problem in life. I’m so, so lucky!

Nothing is perfect, nothing is ever finished, and nothing lasts.

My New Korea 3

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My project to introduce clean, low emissions, wood fired kiln technology to Korea has gone pretty well. The third firing that I did using local hard wood was excellent. In fact, better than I had hoped for. I was actually surprised how well it went. I’m a cautious person, So I was a bit surprised, I wasn’t going to dare to change anything, just stick to my technique and decisions. It worked! So that was good!

I’m always prepared for things to go wrong when trying new things. Very few things in life ever turn out perfectly, and this last firing came close, but the was no cigar! The bottom back shelf was still a little bit under-fired. However, no-one complained!

The day after the kiln was unpacked, I went down to the kiln shed early the next morning, before work, and took out the bag wall. I eliminated one complete layer off the top, and removed one full brick from the cross-section. I re-arranged the smaller number of fire bricks with bigger gaps between them, so as to allow more flame to pass straight across the bottom of the chamber and allow more heat to the bottom back shelf.

Over the three firings that I did here, I got better results each time, as I tuned the kiln settings and chose better wood, more appropriate to fire cleanly in this design of kiln.

Below is an image of my kiln firing to stoneware in reduction near top temperature. There is no smoke coming from the top of the chimney.

My chimney isn’t particularly tall, but it is wide. Short and thick, does the trick! Or so I’m told!

I calculated the height and cross-section of the chimney based on theory. The total volume of the hot gasses enclosed in the chimney volume, as opposed to the same volume of cold air on the outside. Chimneys work because the cold air outside is forced in at the firebox by air pressure, and this pushes the lighter hot air up and out of the top of the chimney. It’s all about volume, not just height.

Below is the traditional kiln next to mine being fired the traditional way. Koreans are used to making loads of smoke. It just seems so natural to them. They were quietly amazed that I could fire with so little smoke and still reduce. One of the traditional kiln firing team, A National Treasure potter from his own local region, went straight home and built a copy of my kiln for himself. So I consider that a success!

So my introduction of new ideas, with appropriately successful results, was well received. My host, Mr Jung, had organised the local TV station to make a documentary film about my visit, the firings and the subsequent exhibition of the fired works. Several international potters from France, Japan and China were invited to make work for me to fire, as well as a few local potters. After the kiln was unpacked and the work fettled, it was put on show in the Porcelain Museum. The exhibition is on until late June in the Porcelain Museum. The Museum Director released a short promotional video of the firing in time for the exhibition opening, which he posted up on-line and got over 4,000 hits the first day. So he is very happy.

One of my bowls from the firing, with the Korean location name stamp and my name in Korean

The Staff of the Museum took me out to dinner after the event. They are all such a pleasant bunch of people, I really enjoy their company, They are great people. As I don’t have more than a simplistic grasp of ‘Airport’ Korean. All our conversations are carried out using translation software on our phones. The local Korean app is called ‘Papago”.

We went to a local restaurant where the chef makes his own hand made noodles. It’s worth going there just to watch him work. It’s an entertainment in itself!

Before I left, I made my usual pilgrimage up the mountain to the historic site where porcelain stone can be picked up off the ground. I collect a bag full each visit, (10kg) take it back to my room and wash it thoroughly, scrub it well, to get any dirt off the stones, then soak it in chlorine bleach over night to make sure that they are sterile, before bringing them home. It only needs to be put through the rock crusher, then the ball mill with enough water to make a slip, and then stiffened back up to a plastic state before throwing it on the wheel. 

Throwing stones! Powdered porcelain stone mixed with water, nothing else!

There is nothing quite like sericite. It’s such a unique material.

After finishing my work at the Porcelain Museum, I travelled up to the northern suburbs of Seoul, to meet up with my friend Sang Hee. She took me to her mothers farm, where we spent the morning weeding some of the rows of vegetables.

And a salient reminder that you never step over a fence line here! Even though you are in the suburbs. Not everywhere has been thoroughly de-mined and checked to make it 100% safe.

My last day was spent in Seoul, getting ready to fly out the next day. I went into the tourist area and got a couple of new name stamps made, as I lost all my older name and workshop stamps in the big fire.

Another very rewarding trip in every way. I’m so lucky to be able to do this work!

Nothing is ever finished, nothing is ever perfect and nothing lasts!

My 2nd New Korea

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I’m working in Korea in this little artists village community on the edge of a country town. There have been potters here making and mining porcelain stone for 800 years. The village is located away from the township, such that the smoke from the traditional wood fired kilns is not a concern for the township residents. It was great forethought in its time to start to locate all the wood kilns up into this side valley.

But it doesn’t stop there, this has been a long-term plan and as with all long-term plans, it is evolving and adapting with current thinking and social mores. Hence my involvement here with the constriction of my low-emissions wood kiln firing designs and techniques. I was commissioned to start this work here, back in 2019, I was all set to come, but before I could start, we had the fire, then covid intervened. So I was unavailable for some years. But I’m back here again now the the plan is back on track.

My demonstration firing was very successful. In previous firings here the only fuel available to fire the kilns with was very dry 5 year aged local pine. The standard fuel here that everybody uses. It is a statement of fact here that dry pine is the only fuel that works in a kiln! 

Last year when I was travelling around, I visited a famous potter’s studio, where they fired with wood. He had built a special pine fuel drying kiln, to desiccate his very thinly split fuel. He told me that it was his special secret, and that only desiccated pine could raise the temperature of the kiln easily. Other potters struggle with ordinary wood, but he had discovered the answer. I decided not to mention that I sometime throw water over the dry pine to get a better result! He had no concerns about making smoke. That was taken as a norm. All kilns make smoke, don’t they!

In the kilns that I have built here, the 5 year seasoned pine burnt furiously and it was very difficult for me to minimise the smoke. I managed it, but wasn’t at all happy with such dry volatile fuel. I enquired about alternatives. There is hard wood available in the form of oak and acacia. But no one uses it for kiln firing as it doesn’t work!!! That was the local opinion anyway! Meaning that it doesn’t work in the traditional kiln designs, used here, using traditional techniques. I thought that it might just be ideal for my purposes, for use in the down draught firebox.

For this most recent firing I had requested that both pine and oak be available, to give me options. There is also the possibility of using local acacia wood, But I was told that this is not considered be be a useful fuel for kilns. That made me more interested in trying it out. I said that it is one of the better fuels back in Australia, but that hasn’t cut any ice here as yet – apparently.

When I arrived, the oak and pine were stacked neatly in front of the kiln. A lovely sight. I started by using just 100% oak. Initially, I found that the oak burnt black and then smouldered. Just as everyone else had found. But I was perfectly sanguine about this, because my local stringy bark timber back in Australia does the same. In fact the locals wouldn’t cut it for use in their open fire places because of this. I quickly found that a blend of 80% oak with 20% pine was a good combination to get started with, using the flashy pine to keep the oak burning. This combo worked well from 700 up to about 1000 oC, when I cut the use of the pine back to just 10%, and finally at 1100oC, I was using straight oak.

This series of combinations got the kiln firing well, while still burning quite cleanly with almost non-existent traces of smoke from the chimney. Just the occasional waft of pale grey smoke.

Problem solved. I was able to fire up to cone 9 in reduction with virtually NO smoke, while firing in reduction. This is a notable achievement here. A lot of chatter and comment, firing in a wood fired kiln with no smoke, by using the oft’ maligned local oak. Applause all round. Who’d have thought?

Maybe the local acacia might even have been better? But that is a project for another visit.

There are two ceramic university campuses that are keen to follow up on this, as they are located in cities, and there is no possibility of being able to make smoke in their location. Downdraught oak firing might just do the trick.

Word gets about it seems. During the cooling period I got news that the opening of the kiln would have to be delayed from one day to the next, then from the morning of the appointed day, to the afternoon, as the Federal Minister of Culture wanted to be there to see the results unpacked, and he could only be available in the afternoon of the 8th. So when in Rome… I delayed the opening at his masters pleasure.

I’m certain that this is no accident. Of course, I don’t know, but it smacks of ‘realpolitik’ strategising. I’d bet that the Director of the Museum has organised this as a media event to promote the Museum. Politicians fund the things that they see, are involved in, understand, AND if it looks like a successful vehicle to advantage their own career. They want to be seen associated with it. 

Just a thought! Call me cynical! But…

I remember some years ago. I collected some porcelain stone from here and took them back to Australia and made a large bowl out of them. I glazed the bowl with a subtle blue celadon glaze that I made incorporating kangaroo ash. A kangaroo had died on my property, so I calcined it and retrieved the local source of phosphorous from the bones. Phosphorous is known to enhance the optical blue in certain pale iron glazes like celadon.

I gave it as a gift to the Museum Director along with the story. This was my own private Cultural Exchange project. His Korean stones collected from this historic site, made into a pure sericite clay body glazed with my Australian kangaroo blue glaze. He loved it. He was so taken by it that he called the Premier and made an appointment for us to meet him and make the bowl a gift to him. Thus bringing the Museum into his field of vision.

We turned up just before the appointed time for our 15 mins of fame, and were eventually ushered into the Official Office along with newspaper reporters, translators, aids and other staff. I was duly introduced to the Premier, a little bit of small talk. He had been very well briefed and made appropriate comments. Then it was down to brass tacks. I handed over the bowl and he graciously accepted it on behalf of the Korean People. He said straight away that he knew next to nothing of Ceramics, but understood the significance of the effort that had gone into such an art work and its cultural exchange significance. He thanked me again and shook my hand. There was a flurry of flash bulbs going off to record this staged event.

He asked me how I came to be researching Korean Porcelain from this remote place. I replied that Korean porcelain is unique in the history of world ceramics. I came here because of the history of the place and the pots that were made here. You can only learn so much from books. I had to come to experience it. He smiled, so you knew about Korean porcelain from back in Australia? I said yes, once I learnt about it, I had to come. The Porcelain Museum here is one of the very few places in the world where this kind of study can take place. Mr Jung, The Director, is very supportive, open and inclusive. He runs a great institution. 

The Premier was reflective for a second, then said. I believe that you can build pottery kilns that fire with wood and make no smoke. This is important for the environment. Mr Jung has asked me for more funding for this kind of project. If the Museum is so famous internationally, attracting research like yours,

I will fund it! 

The next day, the newspapers had the Premier on the front page announcing the success of his funding initiative for his international artistic ceramic exchange program, for the very successful, now internationally recognised, Yanggu Porcelain Museum. Every one wins. The Premier gets all the credit and is in the paper looking like a hero. The Museum Director got his funding. I enjoyed the research and achievement of making the lovely bowl. The premier mentioned before we all left, that the best place to keep such a unique bowl, would be in the porcelain museum.

Back to the present time and hence the sudden flush of offers of work to build similar such kilns from established potters and university campuses. Once it is shown to work, it gets it’s own legs. Word travels fast. These days it travels electronically with likes and re-postings. It’s very fast.

The Minister of Culture is coming for a visit to the Museum and will be at the opening of the kiln. The kiln has cooled more than enough waiting for him to arrive. I’m introduced to the minister, he asks me in Korean – if I can speak Korean. I recognise the phrase, so I’m onto it, but my recall of Korean standard reply phrases is so slow, that before I can make my clumsy reply, he already knows my answer, so swiftly continues in English. “So we will have to speak in English then!”. I nod my thanks.

We make some small talk. He’s been briefed on hisc way here about the nature of the project and asks me if it is going well and I reply yes. That’s the depth of our interaction. That was my 15 seconds of fame! The photographers elbow in and I’m shifted sideways. The minister looks quizzically at the kiln and my Jung explains something in Korean. The Museum team are then given the go-ahead to unpack the kiln.

The firing is unpacked and everyone ‘oohs’ and ‘arrhs’, the other potters here each look in and turn to me with BIG smiles and thumbs-up. Huge sigh of relief. Everyone is all smiles. The pots are mostly well fired, but I’m interested in the minutiae of the detail. I’m looking not just for colour, but for the depth of colour in the celadons. Not just a shiny surface, but a certain quality of soft melt and satiny quality there. I want to get in and see the flame path and the flashing on the exposed surfaces and kiln shelves. Where is the ash deposit and how has it melted. None of this is possible with 50 people crowding around and flash guns going off. 

Its a bit like a crime scene or perhaps an archaeological dig. You don’t want a rabble of untrained people trampling all the evidence and the details. Just like an aboriginal tracker, I want to read the ephemera, the subtle traces and shadows, but that isn’t going to happen. The pots are whipped out and shown to the Minister, with total disregard of their place in the kiln and their fire face and lee side qualities. 

It’s just a little bit of a shame, as I’d like to learn more than I am able to in this situation. Looks like I’m the only one who isn’t ecstatic! I am really pleased that everyone else is so happy with the result, but I know that I can do better. But I need to read the surfaces to be able to learn what I need to be better at it the next time round.

In a perfect world, I’d like to go slowly and examine each pot in detail. These pots aren’t just trophies and trinkets, they are also part of my research, or at least they were when they went in! But this has become a media event now, and that is also very important, possibly more important, because it may well result in continued or even better funding into the future. A topic far more important than one firing and a few glazed pots.

The firing is a success, no doubts. Everyone is happy. They all leave feeling uplifted and maybe just a little bit happy and warm inside to know that they have been somewhere where there is some sort of mysterious, but positive, environmental action taking place. Even though they don’t understand what it is.

Back at the Museum tomorrow, I’ll have to have a quiet look at all the work as we are setting up the show. But the exact context will be lost, however, I can fill in some of the missing info using my experience. I’m so pleased that everyone is happy, but I could have learnt more to help them with the next firing, as the kiln still needs some fine tuning.

What I could see quite clearly, was that the oak ash was very refractory. I’m guessing that it is very high in SiO2. We may need to burn a bit more pine in the mix to introduce some CaO (calcium flux) into the eutectic to get a softer surface from the ash deposit. I was burning 20% pine in the early stages without smoke. I might have to keep that up for the whole firing? As pine ash has a lot of calcium in it.

All grist for the mill in the future. I could also see that the floor at the back was still a little bit under-fired, so I was up at 5,30 this morning and went down to the kiln and took out the bag wall and rebuilt it one layer lower and with one full brick removed, to make larger gaps. I will see how this works after the next firing. I also placed one brick in the middle flue hole to force the flame out to the corners more. All little fine adjustments that I hope will make it fire more evenly.

Another option for the refractory silicious ash problem might be to place a few tiny pre-fired stoneware cups containing a spoon full of Na2CO3 (washing soda) in the front of the kiln. This will mimic a few years of charcoal built-up and decomposition at high temperatures, where sodium vapours are released from the burning embers. The soda will sublimate and slowly volatilise throughout the firing, reacting with the silicious ash as it is being laid down and help it to melt. or I hope so anyway. Everything is an experiment!

I could also use common salt to get a similar effect, but sodium chloride creates a slightly different look. I don’t want to change the look of the ceramic surface from wood fired into salt glaze pots. But anything and everything is worth a try. At least once. I first came across this light salting technique being used in La Bourne in France, back in 1974, where they had been doing it for centuries. As a naive student, I thought that it was a very clever idea that I hadn’t come across before. Many potters have used it since. In fact, it has become part of the standard repertoire. 

With the influence of the Minister of Culture on the front pages and the release of the TV doco soon, there will almost certainly be more enquiries about this firing method. It is my intension to try and leave the kilns here in good condition and with useful, technically accurate kiln firing logs that the students here can use to do their own firings in the future. Hopefully we can work together ‘virtually’ via ‘Kakao’ talk or Zoom to achieve the best result possible. It could be a whole lot easier if they would just read the book, or at least the first chapter on how to fire!

All that is required now is for some young enterprising Korean potter to pick it up and run with it, develop a small business building these kilns for whoever wants one.

Maybe firing a downdraught fire box kiln with local oak will become a thing? I have shown that it is possible. It is now one other possible strategy for potters and academics in the field, to follow to be able to keep on wood firing here into a cleaner, carbon constrained, and environmentally friendlier future. 

All I need to do now is to introduce them to the concept of the after-burner/scrubber to minimise PM 2.5 particulates, not just smoke. But that is a bridge too far at this time and for this visit.

My new Korea?

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I’ve been invited back to Korea to build and fire another of my low-emission wood fired kilns and to do another demonstration firing of one of my previous kilns. The first of these firings was filmed by Korean TV for a documentary to be shown later in the year.

The firing for this kiln was done using the same 5 year old, very dry seasoned pine timber, that I used last year with the other kiln that I built. 

It’s a considerable challenge to burn very dry timber like this, loaded with volatile resins, and not make loads of smoke. Not the best fuel for a clean, low-emission kiln firing demonstration. But that is what I was given to work with, so I did my best. It is possible to keep it fairly clean, but there is definitely some smoke. It takes a lot of skill. 

Not recommended for the beginner. Still, everyone seems to be happy enough. The results were excellent!

It is possible to wet the wood to slow down the combustion and clean up some of the potential smoke, because water actually aids combustion when it is introduced at temperatures above 1100 oC. It’s hard enough too explain this concept of ‘water gas’ to students in Australia, using English language, which I’m better at than I am at Korean. Impossible using ‘kakao’ translation app in Korean. I started to try, but gave up after a few minutes.

A week later, I moved from Yanggu to Bangsan and went to work on my other kiln job. 

While I was doing the 2nd demo firing, a famous celadon potter from down south drove 8 hours up to see and experience the firing. He had read the Korean translation of my book ‘Laid Back Wood Firing’ and was very keen to see it in action. He was clearly impressed, as he offered me a job to come back and build one for him later in the year. I declined. I have had 3 offers of kiln building work here this trip and two on the last trip. This could be my new Korea.

But I’ve decided that I’m too old for this sort of thing now. Kiln building is to labour intensive, it’s hard on my back. Especially on all the lower than waist height layers of brickwork, and it’s also somewhat stressful for me to organise all the important details in another language. There are tight deadlines and budgets, and doing it all using the phone translator app adds to the complications. I don’t need to do it to make a living any more. 

I only came to do this job as a favour for my friend here, Mr Jung, the Director of the Yanggu Porcelain Museum and Research Centre. He has always been so supportive of me in my porcelain research interests. Mr Jung is keen to promote cleaner wood kiln firing. Tradition wood kilns here belch black smoke from start to finish. The two old traditional kilns built in the museum grounds in the township of Bangsan can’t realistically be fired anymore, because of residents complaints about the smoke. They are beautiful objects, like sculptures in their own right. The museum is located right on the main street, in the centre of town, making the smoke problem difficult to ignore. If I lived next door, I’d complain too.

 2 items of beauty.

As with all things, these matters are complicated. Porcelain has been mined here and pots made and fired on this site for 800 years. It’s a hugely important cultural site. That’s a lineage impossible to ignore. However, the times they are a chang’in. Every one is aware of our carbon constrained, global heated, industrially damaged climate now, and air pollution is a huge problem, particularly in Seoul. There was a time when I first visited here, that everyone claimed that all the pollution was blown in by the westerly wind from China. It wasn’t Korean pollution! A convenient excuse to do nothing.  (No-one seemed to notice that the wind wasn’t a problem on Sundays when there was much less diesel traffic in the city). But people have wised up. They want change. They want cleaner air.

Just after my first visit here, some years ago, burning pressed coal briquettes was banned as the main heating and cooking method here. The government did this by bringing gas to the town. They weren’t so stupid as to just ban coal. (See below). They offered a solution first up. Janine and I were working here at the time, and were particularly impressed by the speed and efficiency of the operation. The gas installers team progressed from one end of the main street to the other, about half a kilometre, digging the trench, laying in the pipes, installing side take-off lines to each house, company, or cafe as they progressed, testing the section, then back filling and finally re-tarring the road surface as they went, from laneway to laneway, in 50 metre sections, day after day. The whole street was done while we were there. No one was inconvenienced for more than a day or two.

I reflected on this and couldn’t help but think of Australia and making the comparison. It took 2 months for our local council to re-work the intersection of the street entry into our village at the level crossing. Less than 50 metres of tarred road. Terms like glacial come to mind. I think that the difference is that here, Korean’s work on contract and our local council workers were on wages, so no rush. 

The lord Mayor of Brisbane also comes to mind, declaring homelessness illegal in Brisbane. Genius! give this man a PhD and a Nobel Prize! He did absolutely nothing to offer any alternative. No grand plan. No long-term thinking. No considered strategy. No forethought. No low income housing construction budget. Just get that problem out of my sight. I can only hope that he will ban cancer and war next!

No wonder we are the big brown dumb land that sells black and red dirt.

Back in The Porcelain Research Centre, the Director had a grand plan that involved long term thinking and strategy. The old disused army barracks on the far edge of town, up in a seperate little spur valley became available. He somehow organised to get it included into the Museum plans and therefore long term budget. Over the years he has relocated all the wood kilns and several more as well, to make a small porcelain village. With specialised facilities for wood firing. both traditional and modern innovative designs. 

There are 6 seperate, self contained house/studio buildings, for research students and their families, a central communal meeting place/cafe, A huge accomodation block for visitors and guests during big events, Plus a seperate family guest house. 

On this visit, I got to see inside the huge new, almost complete, student residency building, with 6 self contained single studios and living quarters, 3 either side of a massive central kiln room and glazing lab. Korean students can come to study for periods of 1 to 3 years. Foreign students can come from 1 to 3 months. 

The construction phase is almost complete. They are just doing the landscaping now. This is becoming a very impressive place to come and study. 

As I understand it. Local Korean ceramic students that are accepted into the program here are usually supported by their university to come here for higher degree research study up to 3 years for a PhD. They don’t have to pay any rent, but they have to cover the cost of their own firings and food. I’m unaware of the cost for international students, as the building isn’t ready yet, so there haven’t been any so far.

I’d come and work here again, as an artist in residence, if I didn’t now have an even better studio and creative environment back at home in my new workshop, just sitting there waiting for me. Now Janine and I are in a position to invite students to come and work and study in our studio from time to time. Regrettably, we can’t off the same standard of on-site accomodation as they do in Korea.

New Student accommodation building.

Is there any wonder that I love coming here to this supportive, creative, artistic environment so much?

K-Pot Journal 4

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After the successful firing of my kiln, which could have been better, but served well as a proof of concept firing. I have a couple of other jobs lined up while I’m in Korea. One of them was for an institution, but the person in charge hadn’t applied for permission to build a kiln there until last week, so no permission was forthcoming – at least not in time. I couldn’t build a kiln in an institution without permission, just in case it was refused, or so slow in coming that it would be approved for the next financial year, either way. I wouldn’t be able to get paid for any work done now. So I decided to move on to the next job.

One of the potters working on the big kiln in Bangsan Porcelain Village, named Mr Kim tells me that he has built a downdraught firebox wood kiln at this home on the east coast, but it didn’t work all that well. We have been discussing this over dinner in the evenings. I show him my plans for the Bangsan kiln and all the mathematics that I use to work out all the dimensions for the various openings, firebox, flues, throat and chimney etc. He asks me to come with him after this job here is over, he’ll drive me to his place and I can look at his kiln and make any suggestions that I can think of to help him improve it. He tells me that he’ll drive me back again afterwards as well. This is good news, as my suitcase is now approaching 30 kgs with the load of sericite stones that I have recently added to it. Catching public transport is a bit of an ordeal with such a heavy bag. I decide to go through it and jettison everything that is not essential. I get rid of 5 kgs in that effort.

We set off to cross the country, over the mountain range that runs down this part of South Korea. We stop at a famous lookout to view back to where we have just come.

I look over the edge of the viewing deck and unsettlingly, I can see what appears to be the previous wooden deck that has collapsed into the ravine below us!

The trip is several hours to the East Coast and it turns out that Mr Kim owns a hotel and restaurant on the top of a cliff over-looking the sea. He tells me that I can stay in one of the empty rooms for the next few days while he shows me around. We dine in the restaurant run by his daughter and son-in-law and the next day at dawn we are off for a walk down to the harbour to see the sun rise.

After our walk, mr Kim takes me to the local fish markets, where we buy fish, tofu, vegetables, chillies and pickles for the restaurant.

If you ever think that you might need 20 kgs of dried chillis. I know where to get it.

Mr Kim tells me that he built the hotel 20 years ago, and moved his growing family here from their first home that he built up in the mountains an hour inland from here. He studied architecture and engineering at university and set up his practice high in the mountains where they were snowed in for 3 months of the year. It is a very old subsistence farming area with a lot of ’National Trust’ Listed and preserved farm buildings that date back hundreds of years. These old farm houses were preserved because the climate is so difficult up there, no one could be bothered to pull them down and rebuild on the site. Mr Kim operated his practice during the winter lock-down through the internet. Korea has really excellent internet coverage and speeds. He and his wife raised 3 children up there. He tells me that he will take me up there to see the old place. He still owns it. He tells me to bring a jacket.

We drive up the narrow, winding, mountain roads full of mist and fog, the air is getting colder. I can feel the chill in the air deepen. I’m glad that he warned me to bring a jacket. We drive for an hour or so until we crest one of the mountain peaks and discover a clearing with a very ancient farm house on it. There are row upon row of stone buttressed retaining walls to make garden beds on the steep hilly terrain. Generations of farmers have toiled here in this soil, so high up on this mountain. I can feel the aches and pains of all this endeavour, solidly secreted in this soil, and in these terraces.

The old house is a combination of earth and timber. The roof is made of timber shingles that have been split from massive slabs of wood. It’s a beautiful old farm house.

We drive on over the next hill and come to a stop in the narrow street. He hops out and ushers me across a narrow little bridge over a torrent and into a grassy clearing between a few old hexagonal pavilions. There are row upon row of old ongi jars lined up around the edges of the grassy clearing. It hasn’t been mowed for some time and everything is quite derelict looking – but very familiar. 

I’m struck by an intense feeling of deja vu! 

I turn to him and say the strangest thing.  “I’ve been here before”. I’ve lived here! Actually, I’ve slept in that building over there and had a meal in that building there!”  

It’s so unbelievable. I can’t believe it. At first, I’m not even sure if what is coming out of my mouth somewhat unintentionally is really true, but the more that I look and take it all in, the more that I’m sure. Yes. I’ve stayed here! But this place is so remote! It’s almost impossible!

Mr Kim is taken aback. His eyes are wide. He is shocked at what I’m saying, and so am I, Because it couldn’t possibly be true. Am I just joking?

Is there some sort of lost-in-translation effect happening? He doesn’t believe me. He tells me “No one comes up here. There is nothing here. Most of these farms are abandoned.  How could it be?”

I’m perfectly sure of it now, as I look around and take in more of the details, it is all coming back to me. Yes! I’ve stayed here 8 years ago! Mr Kim looks puzzled, then his face lights up. “Yes, of course. I let a young potter live here 8 years ago rent free, if he rebuilt my wood fired kiln for me in lue of rent.”  He was Mr Jaeyong Yi!

When I came to Korea for the first time in 2016, my translator, guide and driver. Ms Kang SangHee drove me up here from Cheongsong way down south. We were on a mission to find ancient sites where sericite porcelain was first developed. I had met Mr Jaeyong Yi down there in Cheongsong. He had invited us to stay with him in his house, in the mountains, as it was on our way to Taebaek up north to visit another sericite location. I wrote all about that adventure up here in Taebaek, back then in my first Korean blog,

 ’The Kim Chi Chronicles – part 3, 16/9/16 on <’tonightmyfingerssmellofgarlic.com’>

Mr Jaeyong Yi was most hospitable and looked after us very well at that time. The grounds are not as well kept anymore, now that no one lives here. But it still has a charm about it.

We walk around and laugh at the impossibility of it all and the absurdities of life.

Our next stop is to drive down the coast for another hour farther south to catch up with an old friend that we both know. HyeJin Jeon, was a PhD student in the Yanggu Porcelain Research Centre in Bangsan some 6 or 7 years ago. I bumped into her a couple of times on different trips to Korea during her studies there. We became friends and kept in touch by email over the years. She graduated with her PhD a few years ago, and has recently been appointed as the Professor of Ceramics at the Gangneung University on the East Coast. Its not that far further south from where we are. 

HyeJin Jeon is very pleased to see us and gives me a big hug. It’s been 6 years since I last saw her in Bangsan.

She shows us around her faculty, then the three of us spend the day going around all the Museums and ancient buildings in Gangneung city. We stay on for dinner and drive home in the dark. It was very nice to catch up after so long. I’m pleased that she is doing well.

The next day, Mr Kim shows me his kiln, I go over it, I measure all of its critical features and then spend an hour drawing up a sketch and working out the exact proportions of its openings. I come to the conclusion that the flue needs to be bigger, much bigger. Bigger by 3 times! This is the major problem. But the fire box could also be larger again by half as well. These alterations wont be easy, but are doable. I also suggest that it might be better in the long run if he starts again from scratch. I give him the plans for my kiln that I built in Bangsan as a starting point to help him get the best outcome. He looks at my page of calculations and announces. “ You are not just an artist, you are a scientist!”

Instead of driving me back up to Bangsan, after some discussion, we decide that it will be best if Mr Kim drives me to the local station, so that I can catch a train across to Yeoju and visit both Mr Lee JunBeum and my old friend, former driver, translator and guide, Kang SangHee. 

It’s good to see Ms Kang SangHee again too, I catch her taking my picture when I’m not looking, so I reciprocate.

We meet up in Mr Lee’s wife’s cafe and bakery, where Ms Kang is helping her bake the days bread. 

We spend the day travelling to all 3 sites of the ceramics Biennale. There are some very impressive ceramics on show. Later, I am able to help JunBeom with his new kiln. The least that I can do to show my appreciation for all his help.

The next day JunBeom and Yoomi drive me to visit the National Treasure potter of traditional sgraffito slip decoration, called Buncheong.

His name is Park Sang Jin and they get a long chat in Korean, insight into which I get through occasional translations from Jun Beom, then we all get a guided tour of his workshop, gallery and kilns.

On my last day in Korea we travel south to the city of Andong to visit the other Mr Kim, Kim SangGe, we worked closely together on the Bangsan kiln and he invited me to visit him if I was ever in Andong. He has an amazing roof structure over his workshop and kiln shed. Possibly cast concrete, but with a decorative layer of old weathered and broken roof tiles applied as a kind of mosaic. It’s really beautiful. Artists are just so imaginative and creative in everything that they do. I wish that I’d thought of doing that! Mind you, I don’t have access to thousands of old weathered and broken roof tiles, nor the funds to have an undulating concrete roof cast in-situ. Not the sort of thing that I could ever own, but I’m very pleased to be able to visit.

Mr Kim Sang Ge, serves us a special tea made from dried Tibetan chrysanthemum flowers. Interesting, but not particularly flavourful or tasty. He asks if I like it, and I reply yes – just to be polite, what else can I say? He then gives me the whole packet. I thank him warmly, but I know that I can’t bring it back into Australia, so I give it to Jun Beom when we get home. It was very generous of him and I appreciate that. 

Mr Kim led the kiln building team that built the 5 chamber kiln in Bangsan that Janine and I experienced firing back in April this year, see my blog entry;  <Kiln Firing in KoreaPosted on 13/05/2024>

Mr Kim’s kiln is made from thousands of hand made cone shaped raw clay fire brick blocks to form the domes of each chamber, plus an equal number of rectangular blocks used for the walls.

Mr Kim takes us to see the spectacular fire ceremony that takes place this time each year as part of the Traditional Harvest Festival in Andong. There is a tiny traditional Hanok Village of small, earth and timber, thatched roofed buildings, set in the bend of a river, opposite some steep cliffs. it’s an idillic spot, exceptionally beautiful. Each year at this time the ancient founders of the village are remembered by hoisting ropes up across the river, over to the cliffs and hanging burning hand made flares made from leaves and twigs. The sparks flutter down from the ropes into the river in the night sky. It’s quite dramatic. There are no modern fireworks going ‘bang’! Just the gentle cascade of sparks down from the sky.

I’ve been so lucky to have been able to witness so many wonderful things on this trip. Not my usual artist in residence stay in just one place or a simple conference presentation.  One of my planned kiln jobs evaporated, but was replaced with a multitude of very different experiences. I am very grateful to all my Korean friends! Thank you!

Nothing is perfect, nothing is ever finished, and nothing last forever.