Category Archives: travel

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.

K-Pot Journal 3

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In the evenings after the days kiln work and dinner, we are all allowed into the Porcelain Museum pottery room, so that we can all make some pots to put in the first firing of my kiln. I don’t know whose idea this was, but it’s a very good one. Everyone has contributed to its construction, and as it’s such an unusual kiln for these parts. It’s a very good idea for everyone to get to see a pot of theirs fired in it. NO Pressure!

It turns out that there are two ‘National Treasure’ potters in our crew here. But everyone is a famous potter from their own regional district. They all come together to do these big kiln building events at special places around the country. A loose conglomerate of like minded and highly skilled artists all contributing their own particular skill set to these big projects.

We pack the kiln with our bisque fired and glazed pots, with other contributions from the research students as well. There is only just enough pots to fill the kiln. I could have fitted more work in if there was any. But there is just enough.

Interestingly, they don’t use digital pyrometers or pyrometric cones here. Traditional firing is judged by colour, sound, smell, smoke and flame. Using years of experience with a particular type of kiln, to judge the progress of the firing. They do however use small glazed tiles as draw trials to gauge the degree of glaze melt, and something that I haven’t come across before, and that is the use of a small amount of stiff glaze paste, that is rolled between the fingers into a small length of pasta sized rod and set in some wadding. This little 3mm dia. rod of glaze will melt at top temperature and fall over, in much the same way that we use pyrometric cones as pyroscopes. 

I suddenly realise that I’m really out of my depth here. I usually rely on a digital pyrometer to tell me how I’m going. Now I have to go back to basics and look and listen very closely to the fire to make my decisions. Luckily I’ve also done this before too, so I’m OK, but would prefer the  reassurance of a pyrometer to confirm my decisions. Until very recently, we used ‘handheld’, battery operated, digital meters. This meant that you had to go over to where it was and switch it on, to see the LCD display the temperature. They are cheap – very cheap – $10 to $15, pretty reliable and because they are intermittent, they teach you how to look and listen to the kiln, to watch the fire and see how the wood is burning. How the flame is developing, and not just stare at the screen. Since the big fire here. We lost everything, and I bought 240 volt LED permanent temperature displays, online from China for $30, so I have recently become addicted to screen watching in my dotage. Luckily, I still retain some of my mental capacities, well learnt and polished to a finely detailed finish. So just like my stick welding skills, my firing skills are soon retrieved from the dustbin of the recesses of my mind. 

In the late 1960’s, when I built my first kiln. No one owned a pyrometer. They were just so expensive. They were totally out of reach. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I learnt a lot. I wouldn’t recommend this learning strategy. Using an intermittent pyrometer is the better way to learn so much faster and without the losses that I incurred. My first pyrometer was an analogue, needle indicator, galvanometer. They were quite inaccurate and it taught me not to trust them. A wise decision. They are nearly always wrong. I use them to tell me if i’m going in the right direction. Up or Down. That’s it! I leave the decision as to wether the kiln is finished or not to the use of draw trials, test rings and pyrometric cones.

It is very important to me to fire this kiln well, not just get it to temperature, but do it in a steady, constant, reduction, so that all the usual reduced stoneware glazes that they use here will come out as they expect. BUT, most importantly, to fire the kiln with as little smoke as possible. As that is the main reason for me to be here doing this. This kiln is a demonstration of low emission wood firing.

I must admit that as the only fuel here is 5 year old very dry and seasoned pine wood, that burns very fiercely and fast, I have my work cut out to keep the kiln in reduction, but to minimise the smoke at the same time. As it turns out, I can never get to the stage of filling the hobs with progressively combusting wood, as it is designed to do. I ask if there is any hard wood available and I’m told that it can be obtained, but not at short notice. In fact hard woods like oak and acacia are cheaper than pine, so they will get some in for the next firing. But for now, I have to carefully juggle the wood level in the fireboxes. This means constant attention to detail, so this is not really a Laid Back Wood Firing at all, but a rather busy one. AND, not a smokeless wood firing, as the cover of my book in Korean translation falsely claims!

I manage it reasonably well, but each time I stoke and there is a little burst of pale grey/brown smoke from the chimney. There a howls of jeering from the kiln builders next door. However, although it is smoke, it is nowhere near the column of black smoke that issues from the traditional kilns here. Young Mi, one of the resident researches here translates for me during the firing. She tells me that the jeers are just in good humour, and that the chatter is all about how little smoke there actually is and how clean it is. I have surprised them. 

Another resident confides in me that he expected to see flames come leaping up out of the fire box as soon as I lifted the lid. He is also surprised how enclosed, slow and gentle the firing process is.

 These 4 images by Kim Young Mi.

I prepared 8 stacks of timber for the firing, expecting to use it all, but as it turned out, I only got to use just over half of it.  In the afternoon, when I go to look in the spy hole, all the little glaze rods have melted. The firing is over in just 9 hours. Too quick! I didn’t realise how fast the temperature was rising without a pyrometer. The colour in the chamber is still looking rather yellowish, and doesn’t have that bright pale glow that I’m used to. I wonder what temperature that glaze stick actually melts at? 

Note to self!  Next time I come here for a firing I’ll bring my own pyrometric cones and a hand held digital pyrometer.

The firing turns out OK. The glazes are pale, grey-blue celadons and off-white, grey/white guans. As I only burnt 4 stacks of wood, possibly 250 kgs of wood, there is no obvious ash deposit, just a little dusting of ash on the glazes facing the fire.

The bottom back shelf is under-fired, but I can remedy that by firing a bit slower and also adjusting the bag wall gaps and height. I hope to be invited back to fire it a couple of times in quick succession, at some later stage, to get to tune it and get an even temperature throughout.

Meanwhile, life goes on in the rest of the village, with the rice harvest in full swing, and autumn vegetables ripening in peoples gardens. I’d love to get in there and pick some of those beautiful vegetables.

Work has been progressing on the big kiln next door. It is more or less finished, but may need some extra work on it. I’m not too sure there. It will certainly need to be pre-fired to remove all the arch shuttering that is built into each of the 5 chambers. It’s a massive kiln!

Who knows if, or when I’ll be back? What does the future hold. Watch this space


Before I leave this beautifully creative place, I make my usual pilgrimage up the mountain to the ancient site where all the sericite porcelain stone was stock-piled in ancient times. The site has been tragically decimated by a local former. I imagine to stop it being declared an historic ‘National Trust’ site of importance? The whole site was bulldozed some years ago, but remnants remain in the soil. Particularly after heavy rains, the white stones stand out from the brown soil and are easily collected. I make a point of hiking up there and seeing what is available for me to collect. I return with 10 to 15 kgs of stones in my back pack and start the process of meticulously scrubbing the stones to remove any particles of dirt. Then I rinse then several times, until the water runs clear. Finally I soak them overnight in bleach to kill anything that might be harmful to the environment in Australia when I return. 

Back home, I put them through the jaw crusher and then into the ball mill and let the slurry sit and flocculate for a month or two, before stiffening and plastic ageing before use sometime next year.

K-Pot Journal 2

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Building my kiln went pretty easily. 

Because the kiln shed wasn’t finished on time, the team of 8 professional kiln builders that are contracted to build the massive North Korean designed 5 chamber kiln that is going in the new shed next to mine, are all sitting with nothing to do for a couple of days, as the slab for their kiln hasn’t even been cast yet. The slab for my kiln was cast the day before I arrived, but as they were still finishing the roof of the shed I wasn’t allowed on site because of the danger of falling objects. So nothing happened for the first day for any of us. We all went into the nearest big town half an hour away to buy groceries for the coming week.

There is almost nothing fresh available here in this little village. There is a junk food ‘convenience store’ that mostly sells soft-drinks, tinned coffee, beer and cigarettes, and a very small ’supermarket’ where you can drop off the first word and buy dried and canned foods that aren’t particularly super in degree or range.

No one sells fresh vegetables, and understandably so, as everyone here, with exception of the dozen museum staff and research students, is involved in farming vegetables. I suppose that they either grow what they need themselves, or swap with neighbours who do. Either way there is nothing fresh in the two tiny shops here.

In the bigger nearby town of Yanggu, there is a choice of bigger grocery shops and one real supermarket. We travel there and get a weeks supply of almost everything that we can think of, that we might need to feed ourselves for the coming week. We spend about $700 on these 3 trolleys of various food items. It even includes shoju and beer! I notice that they sell red wine in there. So return by myself while the others are loading the cars, and buy 4 bottles of red wine, mostly of cheaper origins like Chilean and South Africa There is nothing from Australia available. 

I don’t enjoy shoju at all, but quite like the fermented rice wine called makoli and the local beer, but I feel that there might be an occasion when there will be an opportunity to share some claret in the coming evenings together. It turns out that I’m spot on with this decision. The bottle doesn’t go very far when shared 9 ways!

The first day of brick laying, with many helpers goes really fast and I lay out the parameters for the design and using a string line and plumb bob weight, I make sure that the chimney will be directly below the roof opening. This laying out is the slowest part of kiln building. Getting everything square and level before we start. 

Many hands make light work and we lay the two floor layers in record time. I introduce these Korean professional kiln builders to ‘herring bone’ pattern floor bricklaying technique. They don’t seem to recognise what I’m doing, but using my phone and a translation app, I explain it to them as best that I can, and one of them googles/navers it and announces that it is called herring bone, and they all nod approval, discussing it in detail in Korean chatter as we work. This pattern helps to avoid any straight through cracks developing from left to right or front to back as the kiln shifts and moves as it expands and contracts during its firings. 

2 days later,  I notice that they have decided to use it in the base pattern of brickwork of their kiln foundations as well!

I get this unexpected extra manpower help with my brickwork, as the slab for the big kiln next door is not yet cast. In fact, the local builders are still relocating soil for the earth ramp of the man-made slope and then framing the formwork for the slab. Unbelievably, they get the freshly tamped earth roughly level and tamped down, then all framed-up with formwork and the cement cast by late in the afternoon. I’m pretty amazed by this fast work. However, I do notice that there is no steel mesh used in the slabs, and with it cast on top of freshly placed earth substrate, Will it crack in due course? I have no idea, but hope for the best. These Korean workers sure are fast. Going on this, I can only suppose that there is no steel in my slab either.

I am working flat out, as fast as I can to lay down bricks in their final positions to be laid with mortar seconds later, by one of my several helpers. They are professionals and are so quick. I’m hoping that I don’t make any mistakes working at this speed, as there is no room for any error. It gets particularly stressful when I have to lay out all the mouse holes and tertiary air inlets in under the floor and in the first layer of the walls. They need to be precisely positioned to work effectively, and I have no time to second guess if they are exactly right or not. working with four bricklayers calling for bricks keeps me thinking of four different parts of the kiln at once. Mouse holes, stoke holes, tertiary air inlets, flue holes and the door openings are all required in this first layer, and all at the same time. I’m used to working at a much slower pace and thinking everything through thoroughly. There is no time to think here at this speed. Luckily, I’ve done this before a time or two, so everything goes well.

By the end of the second day, we have the walls well and truely started and up a few courses. I have the luxury of having two of these  enthusiastic helpers dedicated to using both of the diamond saws, cutting the hard fire bricks to special sizes to facilities the special openings that  I need for the tertiary air inlets. These guys have never seen a kiln like this one with so many holes in it. Traditional wood kilns here are very basic in their construction, often, just straight through tunnels, or multiple chambers, one after the other with only the flue holes to think about. They keep asking me how it will all work, and I am at a loss to be able to explain the intricacies of the design to them with my limited Korean and just some charades to do the explaining. It will have to wait until dinner time, when I can get out my lap top and show them some images of finished examples.  Everyone here has a phone with a translation app. I’m constantly turning round to face a phone screen to talk into, to give yet another explanation of a detail in the brick laying pattern.

I briefly have these 7 blokes on my team, and there is just one bloke stripping the form work and measuring the step dimensions and figuring out the layout for the big North Korean designed kiln next door. The cement slab is still fresh, soft and still very wet.

The next day, They are all going flat out on the big kiln, sorting out the necessary steps up the slope and making sure that the first layers will match the brick dimensions needed to align with the next step of brickwork. It’s a massive job. The kiln will have 5 chambers and a huge firebox with two arched openings at the front. They waste no time, and with 8 skilled workers the job flies up.

I am left to work on slowly on my small kiln, with occasional help from one of the bigger kiln team and someone to cart bricks and cut special shapes on the diamond saw when necessary. We work well together, and there is a lot of laughter, good natured banter and good will towards me. At the end of each work session, there are more questions about how it will work. I suspect that they think that I’m a bit mad, or at least quite quirky, expecting the fire to burn up-side-down and not roast my head off as a soon as I open the stoke-hole lid in the top of the fire box. Fire always burns upwards in their experience.

None of them has read my book on downdraught fire box kilns that The Director here of the Research centre has had translated into Korean about 5 or 6 years ago. Not a big seller apparently, among the traditional wood kiln building community?

I ask Mr Jung, The Director of the Porcelain Museum and Research Centre, to bring a copy of the book over to the kiln site, the next time that he visits, he does and it is passed around at morning tea time. A couple of the guys flip through the pages, but I don’t think that any one actually reads it in any detail. After dinner, I get out my lap top and show them images of other projects like this one to help explain what I’m try to achieve.

I build an arch formwork and set it in place on a stack of firebricks, using hand cut special wooden wedges that I place on top to adjust the formwork to the exact level needed, and also to allow me to pull them out and drop the wooden form work down free of the finished brick arch, to allow me to slide the formwork out of the chamber. This excites a little bit of interest in a couple of the bigger team, as they don’t appear to have ever seen this before. 

I have read in older books, perhaps Leach’s Potters Book? That they just leave the form work in place in the big oriental kilns and burn it out later, before the first firing. I though that this was a bit wastefull. So I have never done this, always removing the formwork to be used again in another kiln in the future. When I tap out the wedges and drop the form work, there is a little intake of breath and a smile from Mr Kim who is assisting me at the time. He smiles broadly and taps me on the shoulder, thumbs up. He’s impressed. word spreads and my position in the social order rises slightly. At dinner, some one asks me how old I am. I tell them I’m 72, nodding all round. From this time onwards, I’m always ushered through doorways first and given the front seat in the car when we go somewhere. I’m accepted as one of them as a professional kiln builder, but I’m also the oldest member of the team. So as such I garner a little bit of extra respect as well.

I finish the brickwork on my kiln by the end of the week and start to engage with all the multitude of little jobs that are needed to complete the kiln. I need make a load of ceramic buttons to attach the ceramic fibre insulation to the firebox lids. I also need to get a local company to cut and fold some thin stainless steel sheet to make the fire box lids.

I ask to be given a lift into the bigger nearby town of Yanggu, to buy steel angle iron and round bar to weld on the bracing. It all goes pretty smoothly, and in a couple of days the kiln is all braced in steel. Using a little portable stick welder I slowly work my way around the kiln, cutting and fitting the pieces together. I haven’t used a stick welder for 20 years. I’m a bit rusty on it, but it soon comes back to me. I’ve only used much more modern MIG and TIG welders in my kiln business for the past couple of decades. I have been spoilt by their speed and convenience, but I manage.

In some miraculous way, I manage to weld the 10mm dia. steel rod handles onto the 0.8mm. thick, or should I say thin, stainless steel sheet lids, using the little stick welder. This isn’t normally possible. The heat needed to melt the 10mm steel handle, is far too hot for the thin sheet and would normally burn a hole clean through the thin sheet. I’m aware of this, so prefabricate a small piece of angle iron backing plate that I clamp inside the lid to absorb most of this excess heat. I do burn a couple of small holes through here and there, but mostly it works well and I get the impossible done before lunch. More kudos from the pros on site.

 They are treating me as an equal. It’s turning out to be a very good job.

K-pot Journal

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K-pot Journal

There is a world-wide phenomenon in international popular music that has taken the world by storm in the past decade or so called K-pop. A style of popular Korean music, loosely based on traditional Korean music styles, but greatly influenced by loads of Western music styles like hip hop, R&B, rock, jazz, even gospel, reggae, electronic dance, folk, country, disco, and classical. Every body seems to know about K-pop, this Korean cultural export.

I don’t know much about K-pop and Korean popular music, I come here to study ceramics, so I thought that I’d call this blog K-pot! On my first visit to Korea, 8 years ago, I wrote a blog called ‘The Kim-chi Chronicles’ (Sept 2016), This blog is its latest incarnation.

This is my 7th visit to Korea, since I first came here in 2016. I was here only 6 months ago for a ceramics conference, where I presented a paper on low emissions wood firing. This involves using a kiln with a downdraught firebox (Bourry box) which is capable of firing with relatively little smoke. Of course there is always some smoke when burning wood, but this style of kiln design keeps it to a minimum most of the time.

In Australia, where I have done most of my research, I use hard wood, eucalyptus trees for fuel. Eucalypt hard woods are heavy and dense. They burn slowly and steadily. Perfect conditions for low smoke emissions. Here in Korea, they have a lot of different softwoods in the form of pine trees/conifers. They burn fast and furiously, so it is a challenge to minimise smoke during firings.

People here have asked me what is the secret addition that you have incorporated into the kiln? As if there is some sort of afterburner, that they can add to their own kiln to clean it up. There is no secret addition! It is a complete kiln design incorporating the virtues of the down draught firebox that burns the wood more or less in stages, so that there is no intense emission of volatiles that causes smoke in most other kilns.

So I am here again in Bangsan, in the Yanggu Porcelain Village, this time not as an artist-in-residence, as I have been in the past, but as a kiln building tradesman, a glorified refractory bricklayer. I have been tasked with the job of building a small kiln here that demonstrates that wood burning kilns can be fired with a minimum of smoke.

This project was first floated way back in 2018, when the director of the Yanggu Porcelain Museum and Research Centre, Mr Jung Do-Sub, asked me if I would be interested in such a project. The Museum had purchased the rights to publish my book, Laid Back Wood Firing, and had it translated into Korean. They have also published my other books ‘5 Stones’, and ‘Rock Glazes, Geology and Mineral Processing for potters’.

Unfortunately, The translator took someone else’s advice and renamed the book “Smokeless Wood Firing”. Which is of course not true. all wood creates some smoke when being burnt. My project is to keep the smoke to a minimum. Calling the book ‘smokeless woodfiring’ only creates false expectations, and room for criticism and disappointment.

As a result of the books’ publication, there was some interest in getting one of my kilns built at the Yanggu Research Centre as a demonstration model. Like other places in the world, There is a growing interest in cleaning up the environment, at least from the grass roots level, not from there polluting industries, who are being dragged kicking and screaming to be made to be kept to account. It is this citizen-lead interest that is putting pressure on political leaders to make some sort of gesture to seem to be doing something, while still taking large donations from the polluters to keep the status quo.

The result is a very slow transition to clean up the environment. The results can be seen here in this tiny, remote village. When we were last here before ‘Covid’, in early 2019. The streets were being dug up and gas pipe lines being installed to every home and business. Previously, most home heating and commercial cookery was being done using pressed coal briquettes. Dirty, inefficient and polluting. The immediate result is much cleaner air.

These days the smoke from the wood fired kilns looks just as polluting, now that the residents have paid to have cleaner gas installed, to eliminate their smoke, why shouldn’t the residents want cleaner air, and less smoke pollution from every source? The traditional kilns here are very smokey, producing black smoke all the way through the firing schedule, from start to finish, particularly at the end of the firing, when the extra chambers of the climbing kilns are being fired by ‘side stoking’ methods.

There are two climbing kilns here in the centre of the village behind the research Centre and Museum. One of them right next to an ancient kiln site, where porcelain has been made since the beginnings of porcelain making here, hundreds of years ago. With an ancient tradition of pottery making here in the village, using these old kilns going back many hundreds of years, it’s hard to suddenly say NO! Just stop doing it. So the Director of the Museum, was thinking a decade in advance of this possible occurrence.

He managed to secure access to an abandoned military base, a few kilometres out of town, up a small valley, well out of the village, where a new

Smoke from one of the traditional kilns here.

‘Porcelain Village’ is being built. When I first arrived here 8 years ago, in this new development, the buildings were still very new and my room still smelt of fresh paint, and all the facilities were still being installed in what had been the officers quarters. One of the stone barracks was being converted to a meeting room and coffee shop. The Museum director had big plans to build several different styles of kilns out here to add to the research facilities available to the students. That has since then, mostly all come to pass. However, the plan keeps changing and expanding and getting more complex.
The Museum Director is a very smart guy, a good strategic thinker and politically very savvy.

The first kiln built up in the valley was a tunnel kiln. I didn’t see this kiln being built, as I have been away for 5 years because of the COVID lockdown, and then the huge catastrophic bush fires that burnt our pottery. It has taken me 5 years to recover, so that I could finally accept Mr Jung’s offer to come and build them one of my kilns.

The second kiln built here was a traditional low-firing, earthenware wood kiln, the design of which, originated in Jeju Island off the far South Coast of Korea. It is built out of basalt stones. The only available material on Jeju Island, so is limited to very low firing temperatures. A kind of tough earthenware.
Hand made fire bricks stacked to dry in front of the Jeju basalt stones kiln

The third kiln built here was a traditional 5 chambered climbing kiln, built almost entirely out of hand made blocks and bricks for the walls, and hand rolled cones of local fire clay for the dome and arches.


Hand made clay cone shaped bricks set out to dry in the kiln shed.

The 5 chamber domed climbing kiln getting ready for its first firing

There are 3 independent, self contained workshop/residencies for artists and their families, and another building with 4 bedrooms and 4 studios, suitable for single student residents. Each of the studios has it’s own electric kin and pug mill. There is a huge communal clay processing and kiln firing building with 2 large gas kilns, and finally a very large conference/residence building that can sleep up to a dozen people with large multiple bathroom, toilets, and even a sauna and laundry.

As far as I can ascertain, all the residents/students here have already completed MA hons degrees from their university, and have come here to study for up to 5 years to gain their PhD in porcelain research. It appears that they get rent free access to all the facilities here and only have to pay for their gas and electricity bills. An amazing deal. Such great support for the Arts here! In exchange, they are expected to take part in communal activities like the making of the hand made fire bricks for the last kiln built here. or making the years supply of small test tiles for glaze testing.

There are plans for the local government to develop and sell off several privately owned and developed house and pottery studio sites, next to the research facilities. There may be up to 8 or 10 of these house sites. 2 of them have now been taken up, and buildings are currently underway. It will become a small porcelain village and creative community.

My wood fired kiln is small compared to the vast climbing kilns here. But it is actually quite a large kiln of 85 cu. ft. or 2.5 cu. m. Very large for a single potter to fill regularly in Australia. However, I expect that it will be filled by group effort here, just like all the other big kilns. Mine will be the 5th wood kiln to be built on site here. A demonstration model of what might be possible in terms of reducing smoke pollution in wood firing, while still achieving reduced stoneware wood ash effects.

I only hope that it all goes to plan, However, I am mentally prepared to accept some smoke, as all the wood here is very dry pine, that will burn intensely, so I will have my work cut out to get a good clean result. I will be severely embarrassed if it all ends up going pear shaped in the firing. So far the kiln looks good and is built to the specifications that I usually rely on when designing similar wood kilns. But knows what will happen when I fire it with very dry pine fuel. I can only guess, but I imagine that there will be some smoke.

My finished kiln with 2 Bourry style downdraft fire boxes side by side.
Ready for K-pot firing. I have to wait and see what my decisions were like.

What more could you want?

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Janine and I recently received a surprise job offer to do a geological survey of potential potters materials around Noumea in New Caledonia.

We only had to think about it for 2 seconds, before we said yes!

We are now back home again, hence our radio silence for the past few weeks. We were well looked after and found a lot of useful materials, as far as I am aware, no one has documented anything similar that we could reference. So we were starting from scratch. I approached it as I do here. Consult geological maps for insights as to the best places to look. As these were not forthcoming, we decided to just do a series of drives around the local area and see what turned up in the road cuttings and culverts. These give a great insight into what is under the grass in the countryside. 

The research that I did online before leaving indicated that the principal feature of the main island is a nickel-rich laterite material. New Caledonia holds about a quarter of the worlds nickel reserves. Fortunately for them the new era of lithium battery powered electrical devices relies on nickel as one of the primary mineral components.

Our lovely local contact, who we met online, contacted us after we were recommended to her by her friend, who it just so happens bought my book on Geology for potters online from us! After an exchange of emails, we decided to take the job. Everything in New Caledonia is imported with the possible exception of green vegetables, which can be grown locally. Our host has a plan to run a project to teach the local Kanak people to make pots again. Tribal pots were made there in the past, but are no longer made since colonisation. The same is true of the nearby island nation of Vanuatu. I had volunteered on an aid project in Vanuatu in the past, helping the late Alistair Whyte with his private aid project there. Janine and I have also volunteered on privately organised NGO ceramic aid projects in Egypt and The Philippines, as well as New Guinea and Cambodia over the years. So we had some idea of what to expect.

All pottery materials are imported into New Caledonia at great expense, so are not really viable for the local population on lower incomes. We hoped to pass on what we could learn about what it is possible to do with just using the local resources.

We were driven around and given a running commentary on the local issues and landscape usage. I spotted several dykes that had forced their way through the extensive and almost monotonous red/brown local soil profiles. These pale weathered siliceous intrusions hold a much more promising potential for glazes and bodies. We collected several samples that we took back to the studio for testing and analysis.

We also found several clay deposits that showed some promise, but they were so high in iron and very sticky clay minerals like montmorillonite, that they will probably only be useful as earthenware or mid-fire bodies.

I did however find two clay-like minerals that had some promise of firing to stoneware, but these were largely non-plastic or very low in plasticity. A more extensive and detailed search would no doubt find a more promising range of clays, but we only had 10 days to search for and then test what we had found. There is plenty of scope to continue this work and take the first series of tests to a more complex and useful result, but it will take more time. However, after this brief encounter, I’m convinced that there is plenty of potential to develop a locally available body of ceramic materials. 

The grid tile tests that we made, looking at potential glaze possibilities were very promising. Again there is more work to be done there to refine and develop these early results, but they were very encouraging.

We found a good black/brown tenmoku, a possible oil spot tenmoku, a very good jun blue and cloudy opal blue, and a couple of celadons. Some of the materials from the hard dykes that weren’t weathered so well were difficult to crush fine enough to get a smooth glaze, but the slightly specky glaze tests show such excellent potential that it would be worth investing in some finer milling equipment? We did the best we could in the very short time available and the equipment that we had on hand. I spent a spare moment throwing two large mortars and pestles for use in the future, as there aren’t any to be had in Noumea.

When we took a longer trip down the south coast to a place called Yaté, we found a lovely little beach with a gité, and had a very nice lunch of locally caught fresh fish, over-looking the beach. After lunch, we found both pumice and cuttle fish above the high-tide mark and collected enough to make a sealadon glaze test.

While we were there in Noumea, Janine taught a night class of surface decoration to some of the local potters at the local gallery and pottery studio.

We had a great time and were really thrilled that we could achieve so many promising results in such a short time. It wasn’t all work, we got a little bit used to island time and managed to fit in a few cultural visits to the museums.

There were some lovely old pots that are no longer made by the local people.

Sea food was plentiful, but swimming in the ocean has recently been banned due to two shark fatalities in quick succession.

It was a great experience, but not everything went to plan.

What should have been a short 2 1/2 hr. flight back to Sydney, turned into an epic 2 day travesty of on-going delays, cancellations and more delays.

We were up a 5am to get to the international airport in Tontouta one hour north of Noumea in time to book in for the early morning return flight, but the aircraft was delayed, so we waited. We eventually got on board, but after half an hour in our seats there was an announcement that the plane would be delayed for technical reasons. After another hour the technical issue was fixed, and we were apparently ready for take-off. We taxied all the way to the end of the runway and turned around. I imagined that we would then thrust full bore down the runway and take off into the wind. But NO. We slowly taxied back to where we had started and parked there. We wait…. We are told that they would need to get a technician in to look at the plane. I suspect that they needed a new rubber band for the propeller, and the only one available would have to bought on the internet on ebay and posted out from China? Expect some longer delay.

We waited some more in our seats and there is an announcement but sitting directly behind us there are two rows of very noisey young French men who talk and jostle each other so vigorously, that we can’t hear what is being told to us, but we can tell that these young guys are not pleased with what has just been conveyed. They ark-up and cause even more of a stir. We are eventually told to disembark and wait in the departure lounge. More abuse from the Gauls, who are galled by the decision. I’m OK with it actually. I’d rather that the plane breaks down on the runway than half way to Australia.

We were apparently told to go back through emigration and customs again, our flight has been officially cancelled. We go back, get our exit stamp cancelled in our pass ports and wait in the departure area. We did that for another 12 hours, while the noisey French guys get drunk at the bar. Earlier on, the lady in charge of the airport comes out of her office and speaks to us, actually them, as she doesn’t repeat it in English. The young French hoons yell and scream at her, one even goes right up to her face and vents his rage right into her face, screaming at her. It’s so appalling. I would expect her to call security and have him detained, but she keeps her cool, although visibly distressed. She returns to her office and there is no more direct communication with us, thanks to the drunken dick-heads.

There are occasional announcements over the PA, that were sometimes contradictory. Always in French, however there was sometimes an English version that followed. But with the brain-dead Frenchmen on the flight who were now thoroughly drunk and always yelling and yar-hoo-ing very loudly every time there was any announcement. So much so, that we could never hear the detail of what was said. 

Our sponsor and lovely friend, had seen on facebook that the flight was cancelled and called her friend who she knew was also on our flight. He searched us out, found us, and as a local French speaker, told us what he knew, but it wasn’t very much. We were stuck there in limbo. We just had to wait.

Eventually there came the news that another plane was due in from Brisbane later that night, and we would all be flown to Brisbane. The plane did eventually arrive, an hour late, and after cleaning we were all issued back through customs and emigration again and onboard. It was now 9 pm and we felt like zombies.

We were told that after arrival in Brisbane we should search out the AirCalin representative and she would find us a hotel and another flight onwards to Sydney the next day.

We eventually found her, along with the other 50 to 60 odd passengers who had wanted to go to Sydney. We get allocated a hotel room pretty quickly, but then there is a wait of another couple of hours in the queue of passengers to get our chance to speak to this singular person who is doing the onward bookings on her mobile. We are all sitting, or laying on the floor waiting for our turn. When it comes she tells us that we will have to pay for our own taxi fare into Brisbane to the hotel and back, but there is a mechanism to claim a refund. We get our flight number and taxi away. We finally get into the hotel bed at 2 am.

It’s been a very long and stressful 21 hours of frustration, not improved by our close proximity to drunken dick heads.

We sleep until 7am. Not long enough, but it’s bright daylight out there. We go down to breakfast and return to bed for a little lay down, and suddenly awake to find that we have slept for several hours and we have to rush to get back to the airport for our return flight at 2:30

We needn’t have rushed! The flight before us is cancelled by Qantas, a regular trick performed by them to block other airlines from using the gate. Our Qantas Flight is delayed for an hour. We finally get on board to some relief. But it doesn’t last long. There is a call out for a missing passenger. Will Mr SoandSo please make himself known to the staff. He doesn’t. Eventually the announcement is made that the flight is now delayed further, as the missing Mr. No-show, has a bag in the hold and it has to be found and unloaded.

Finally, another hour later, we take off. Now very late indeed. It will be getting dark soon after we arrive. We need to catch a train to Picton, but it is the weekend now and there is track work, so all the trains are cancelled on our line and we must take several busses to get to Campbelltown and onto the evening train to Moss vale. Then call a friend to come and pick us up at the station, as there are no busses on weekends to our part of the remote world.

Trivial First World problems I know. But they seem to be quite big when you are sleep deprived and stressed. Our beautiful friend Leonard has kept in touch by text and offers to come and collect us from Mascot. Such a lovely gesture, we are past our use-by dates and very grateful of the offer. Even with Leonard’s help, we still only get back home on dark. Len stays over and we thank him by opening a 2009 vintage bottle of superb quality red wine that we had hidden away at the back of the cellar. We share it over a quick pasta dinner. We are able to go to the pantry and get a bottle of our own home grown and bottled tomato passata sauce, an onion, garlic and olive oil, a great friend. We are home safe. 

What more could you want?

A few days down the coast

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During the past week Monday to Thursday, we drove down the coast to visit a few friends that we hadn’t seen for a few years. We haven’t seen a lot of people for the last 3 years, while we have had out heads down and our butts up rebuilding everything since the fire. We are gradually getting to the end of the building phase now, and we are also getting to the end of the fitting out phase as well, but there are always things that need to be done. I suppose that there always will be.

Our few days away are a chance to relax. It may seem strange, but it’s only when I’m away and can’t possibly do anything that needs doing around our pottery, house and garden, that I am forced to admit that there is nothing that I can do and I might as well just zone out. Talk, eat, drink and sleep are our only possibilities. Actually, I tell a lie. While we were visiting my old PhD supervisor, who has become now, a very good friend, We went for a walk around his new acreage and I couldn’t help but stop every few yards to pull out weeds all along the path. It’s just a habit. Denis said that I’m welcome to come back at any time at this rate! We would of course be welcome back anyway of course! Then, later when we were walking around the national Park at Mimosa Rocks with our friends Janna and Yuri, We were occupied all along the walking track picking up fallen logs and sticks that had dropped across the path, clearing the way as we went. Always busy.

We were given access to a lovely little beach house called ‘The Box House’ down in Tanja. <http://neesonmurcutt.com/box-house/&gt;

Our friend Liz owns it as a weekender and is about to put it on the market as an ‘airbnb’ for the Xmas season. We were very lucky to be allowed to stay there and enjoy the tranquility for a few days white it was vacant. Thank you Liz!

We caught up with people that we hadn’t had time to see for a few years, walked along the deserted beaches, walked in the National Pack, had lunches and dinners with our potter friends. Went to bed early with the sun and rose again with it and the dawn chorus. A very lovely time to relax and do almost nothing for those few days. If I’m not at home, I can’t do any mowing, weeding or pruning. If Im not in the pottery shed, I can’t be mixing up clay bodies and glazes. All those seemingly important jobs just have to wait and take their turn until I come back.

Walking along that beach was so much more important for a few days.

When we got home, there were heaps of things to pick from the garden. Zucchinis, squash, beans, strawberries, youngberries and basil are all in profusion

Electric car review – 12 months

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Janine and I have owned our Hyundai Ioniq hybred, plug-in electric car for one year now.We just got our latest owner statistics down-loaded from the onboard computer.We have driven almost exactly 12,000 kms. over the year.We managed to drive 503 km per litre of fuel used in the last month.500 km to the litre is pretty impressive fuel efficiency by anyones standards!I’m very pleased to see these results come through.The expected Hyundai official results for this model car, by the average driver should be around 22.4 km/litre
Dec. 2019

 My average503.16 km/ℓ
 Official22.4 km/ℓ
Results of this month’s 400 km trip, the results are shown below;
IONIQ plug-in official fuel consumption should have been; 17.857 litres
My fuel consumption   0.79 litres

Our CO2 emissions : We generated about 1 gram of CO2 per km.

* Driving standard per 1km
IONIQ plug-in Official CO2 emission 26 g.
My average emission CO2 this month1 g

Over the past year, we have filled the petrol tank 4 times, but the fuel tank is still almost half full.So we spent about $170 on petrol this year, to travel 12,000 kms. over the 12 months.We could only achieve these results because we are actively involved in living a ‘green’, low carbon, small foot print life.Up until last month, we could charge the car from our excess solar power. These last 30 days, since the fire, we dont have any more solar PV. So now we are using green power from the grid, and will have to continue to do so for the next few months, until we can get a new building approved by council and built, then have new PV installed. It’s going to take quite a while to get back our energy independance..But the car will still be driving us around very economically and cleanly.
Best wishes
Steve

New Sericite Clay Samples

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I was recently in China doing some research. I have written a little bit about that, intermittently, in the last month or so. While I was there, I arranged to get my hands on some new and different sericite samples. These have now just arrived here last week and I have done my first tests with them.

I now have 4 different Chinese sericites to compare.

Although it isn’t immediately obvious from the image above. If you look closely, there are 4 different colours of rock samples from top to bottom, white, cream, grey and pale buff. They all look more or less white, but they each have various tints or shades of colour to their whiteness. They all do have one big thing in common. They all throw badly, the palest ones being the least plastic and most difficult. They feel a lot like my local Mittagong porcelain stone, only better behaved.

I felt like I’d gone all the way around the world and come home again when I threw these tests. They felt so familiar.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the results fired. I had a bit of trouble with the usual shrinkage and drying cracking problems, but I did get some of them through successfully. But I lost quite a few. Still, nothing that I’m not used to, and I’m getting good at recycling the turnings and failures.

I almost filled the tray on my old wooden kick wheel with turnings after trimming just 12 small bowls. I must be removing at least half of the weight of the original material to get them thin enough to look and feel like porcelain. I aim for 2mm at the rim and 3 mm lower down, graduating 5mm at the foot. This tapered wall thickness allows the best translucency at the rim and higher up the pot, while retaining sufficient strength to hold the pot up against gravity while it sits at 1300oC in the kin to develop enough glass in the body to be come translucent.

If I’ve done it right, the whole finished, fired, ceramic mass, has the correct quantity of primary and secondary mullite crystals to glue it all together, while becoming glassy enough to allow plenty of light to pass through.

Too glassy and/or too thin and it slumps. Too thick or not fired high enough and it stands up straight, but isn’t very translucent. It’s a bit of a fine line to tread.

not too bad.

As I sit and grind away at this damp, ground-up rock dust with my tungsten carbide tools, I realise that I’m truely happy doing just this. There is a gusty wind outside, but I’m in here sitting in the sun and I don’t want for anything more at this moment. This is fun. I can’t wait to get them into the kiln.

It has all the promise of something special about to happen.

I love that.

27 Kilns in 27 Days – vol 4

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We get to spend a day in the Longquan Celadon Museum. I am travelling with my friends Len Smith and Robert Linigan. I am very interested in these old Celadon pots, particularly from my point of view of the inspiration that I can gain from the best pieces and equally importantly from what i can learn from the shards and broken sections. There is so much to glean from being able to see inside the clay body and looking at the interface between the body/glaze layers.

I love these rich and sensuous fatty celadons, guans and ‘ru’-like glazes. These are some of my favourite pots. It’s not too surprising that I like to try my hand a making glazes with this kind of influence. I wish that I could make something as good as this. It’s a quest.

In particular, I am keen to make my clay bodies and glazes as authentically as possible, by digging up all my own minerals, rocks and stones, then mixing them with ashes from my fireplace, where I burn the wood from my own forrest. It’s a complete commitment to my philosophy of self-reliance, not just in ceramics, but in my life. This coupled with a keen interest in the soft delicate beauty of ceramics the way I envision it. Not just the look, but also the feel of the surface. Equally important to me is the tactile impression -‘feel’ and balance of the pot in my hands, as well as how it will function when I eat or drink out of it.

My favourite coffee bowl at the moment, for my morning bowl of coffee, is a small white tenmoku bowl that is very translucent and very white, made from one of the Chinese sericite bodies that I have experimented with. It gives me a lot of pleasure just seeing it and handling it, even before I drink the coffee from it. It is beautifully balanced, only slightly weighted to the lower half for stability. It looks and feels gorgeous. I’m particularly fond of the slightly out-turned rim that is an essential quality of the tenmoku form. I’ve been using it for a year now and I’m still not bored with it.

Some of the unique qualities that I find I really engage with, are all its ‘faults’ – if that is what they are. I prefer to think of them as being part of its unique character. You can’t buy this bowl from Aldi on special for $2. Their white bowls may look superficially similar, but this pot has a story embedded in it that is only very slowly revealed over time as you get to know it.

For instance, because I’m not a very good potter, I don’t go to all the trouble of trying to make things perfect. Simply because I realised long ago that perfection only exists in the mind of the beholder, therefore can never be achieved, so why bother. Better to make things with character. This bowl for instance has a slightly mottled surface to the glaze, it has a very gentle undulation where the very thin clay body saturated during dipping and the glaze didn’t adhere perfectly. I have come to love this slight quirk of its appearance more than the very smooth glazed surfaces that I can sometimes make. This is a special part of this pots own history of its making.

Another point of interest for me is the hint of the remainder of the clay slurry on my hands left embedded in the surface of the clay after I finished throwing the pot on the wheel. I left it there as a reminder of the touch of my fingers. It is almost imperceptible, but it remains. I wasn’t aware of it presence initially, but it slowly became apparent to me as I got to use it, handle it and wash it up often. Not all my pots have this effect left in them, sometimes I wipe the inner surface clean with a fine textured sponge. At other times, I turn the inside of the pot with a trimming tool when I turn the foot. It all depends on how I am feeling about the pot as I make it. I never quite know how I am going to feel about what I make on the day. So its a surprise to me to be reunited with my own pots, post firing, and to re-discover their special qualities.

I can just see this swipe of my fingers in the image above. You won’t find that in a pressure cast or jigger-jollied bowl from IKEA.

This bowl also has a single iron spot in the glaze, just below the rim. It’s a bit like a beauty spot. I didn’t put it there, but I’m OK with it. This is a real object of beauty and interest. It isn’t perfect. It’s just gorgeous. It also shows my two stamp impressions. One is my initials, the other is the workshop stamp.

Finally there is the total lack of an obvious foot ring until you turn the bowl over and look underneath. I hid the foot recess inside the bowl form to minimise the weight, so as to keep this delicate bowl as light as is possible, but still have an elevated form that lifts it up off the table in a continuous elegant curved line. This is not true tenmoku form, but I think the it is better on this pot.

In the Longquan Museum we saw a lot of shards with loads chipped edges, shattered rims and broken bases. I loved this part of the display. It was all real. Many of the perfect examples had long ago been taken away to other larger collections, as this is only a smaller regional Museum. What was left in this Museum were all the other pots. I learnt a lot form looking inside the shards to see the very same qualities, problems and faults that I get in my work, using very similar materials and and almost identical techniques.

What I found particularly reassuring was that I am not alone. Someone else, 800 years ago also went through all these technical trials and difficulties to arrive in a similar place. Ultimately, there is the reward of the occasional lovely piece that survives.

This bowl is lovely, but what others probably don’t see, but I did, was what, at first glance, appears to the an incised line inside the bowl. That is easy to see, but it is in fact not an incised line, but a remnant of its making that appeared in the kiln during firing and wasn’t there when it was packed in the setting. It was formed in the fire. That wavy line is the raw glaze surface drying out and cracking slightly. The crack then doesn’t completely heal over when the glaze surface melts, but remains as a line in the glass. Perfectly fused, but hinting at its life before it became ceramic. I get it often in my glazed surfaces. It used to annoy the hell out of me, as there was no way that I could see to prevent it happening, if you fire long and low to make that particular satiny surface, it’s just what sometimes happens. If you fire hot, it disappears in the fluid melt at top temperature. This ‘scar’ is a relic of its process and making. I now look on these healed over cracks as an authentic product of the unique process that I indulge in.

Nothing is perfect. Nothing lasts. Nothing is ever finished, and that includes learning.

27 Kilns in 27 days – vol 3

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Vol. 3. Recent industrial wood fired celadon tunnel kiln.

While in the Longquan traditional celadon region researching celadon, we took some time out to visit a former celadon factory, that was forced to close when the economy was modernised. It has now re-opened as a celadon museum/cultural park.

I found it a bit shallow and lacking in depth. That is to say what was there didn’t grab me. It may be of interest to the more general tourist, but there wasn’t enough there to speak to me, as I’m interested in the more intricate details and technical information/insights that could be included, but weren’t.

However, there was an old wood fired tunnel kiln that had been restored. This kiln was the main means of firing the celadons here right up until 1998. One can understand why it went broke and couldn’t compete with more modern factories with up to date facilities and equipment.

There was also an clay processing section that used the old fashioned water-driven, wooden clay hammers, that is a technology that dates back 1000 years. It was exactly fitted with the age of the kiln technology, So out of date for a factory setting, it is hard to believe that it managed to last right up until the 1990’s.

Clearly, this equipment hasn’t been used for many years, possibly since 1998? Just like the kiln.

All the pots produced in the wood fired tunnel kiln, were packed in saggers to protect the ware from the fly ash from the wood fuel, which is so important when making a subtle glaze like celadon.

It is interesting to see that sometime between 60 and 20 or so years ago, they wrapped some parts of the wooden roof frame with ceramic fibre to stop it singeing or charring during firing.

The saggers that were used in the kiln firings are these days used as retaining walls and breeze way walls.