Summer is here

Posted on by

Summer has arrived. and we are ready for all those lazy, hazy, long, hot, relaxing day and balmy evenings with a G&T on the lawn.

But first.

We have to deal with the fruit flies and possible bush fires, but dealing with them is interrupted by the rain.

We have had sudden down pours and thunderstorms, followed by a week of wet weather. It’s a bit like the 70’s, when we used to get sudden summer storms that only lasted an hour, but dropped an inch of rain. That’s 25mm these days! Then it would go back to being hot and humid again, but it gave us sufficient water in the dam to get through the summer with water for the garden, orchards and possibly for fire fighting.

Before this last week of wet, the little top dam had dropped down to just 600mm of water in a little puddle in the centre. Not Good! As we have been pumping water out of it every day for watering the vegetable garden and one day a week in rotation on each of the orchards. Luckily, there was still water in the bottom 2 of the 4 dams that we had built in a ‘key-line’ system across our land, so as to harvest and store as much of the rain fall as possible. 

I get a little bit edgy when the top dam is almost empty like this at the start of summer. We may need 50,000 litres of water in a hurry if a bush fire breaks out near us. I like to be prepared. So I have already gone around and started up and tested all the petrol fire fighting pumps to make sure that they are in good condition and working well. Particularly that they start on the first or second pull of the starter cord. There is no time to be messing around with an engine that won’t start in an emergency.

I use 1 of our 4 different petrol driven fire fighting pumps to pump the water up from the lower dam, up to the little top dam closest to the house. The pump is built in a carrying frame and is not too heavy, so I can lift it into the wheel barrow and walk it down to the dam bank, then drag the lengths of plastic piping into place. It’s all set up with the various fittings already attached to the ends of the pipe. I keep the pipes sealed at both ends with screw-on caps, so that small animals and ants don’t build nests in there during the long periods of non-usage over winter.

The little top dam is closest to the house and was the first dam that we got built back in 1976. It has the solar powered electric pump on it that we use for most of our watering and irrigation. I have kept the long lengths of 50mm dia polythene pipe that I bought after the fire to do this transfer. This is the 2nd time that I have used it.

This works well and gives us plenty of water for the next couple of months of summer. But then, before I can congratulate myself. I rains for 5 days and on one of those days, it rains hard enough for the water to flow down the street and into the culvert drain and into the dam, topping it up just a little bit more. It makes me feel more relaxed about our capacity to cope here when there is water in the dam.

With the heat of summer comes the fruit, and with the fruit comes the fruit fly. Nearly all the the new dwarf fruit trees in the stone-fruit orchard have a crop on them this year. We have gone around and tip pruned all the trees. This summer-pruning keeps the trees in good shape as they grow and develop. We also pick off a lot of the small developing crop to reduce the load on the branches, as a really heavy crop can snap the branches due to the weight of the fruit. There are only two of use here, so we don’t want or need a heavy crop. I fill two wheel barrow loads of small fruit and prunings. 

I have been spraying the trees every two weeks or so since October, – when it isn’t raining, with organic approved sprays for both fruit fly and codling moth. I missed a couple of months while I was away working in Korea, but got back to it when I returned. However, the recent rains have played havoc with my ability to spray, as these are all water based organic sprays, they simply wash off in the rain. They aren’t cheap either at $25 to $35 per packet, which yields 4 to 5 sprays.

I have also infected the apples, pears and quinces with parasitic wasps eggs of ’trichogramma’ wasps. These are bred to hatch out and predate the codling moth and other caterpillars. I haven’t used them before, so have no idea how effective they are.

I also built a few steel triangular housings for codling moth pheromone lures. These work by attracting the codling moths with the scent and then catching them on sticky paper inside the lure. These are working. I can see half a dozen little coding moths inside the lure stuck to the sticky paper. I’ve also been tying hessian bandages around the tree trunks, but so far I’m yet to find a caterpillar in there. This definitely hasn’t worked so far. I also added a ring of sticky bandage around the trunks as well. This also hasn’t yielded any results – so far. My last approach has been to hang empty milk bottles in the trees with cut-out windows, and spreading ‘Spinosad’ fruit fly attractant jelly inside. I use it inside the milk bottles to stop it being washed off in the rain.

Lastly, I re-filled the old ‘DakPot’ style female fruit fly lures with new hormone baits. When I emptied the old ones at the end of winter, there were 50 or so dead fruit flys in each of them. So this does work. It doesn’t stop the female fruit flys from stinging the fruit, but it reduces the numbers of flies by eliminating a lot of the males out of the system.

We still have fruit fly problems, but I presume that it has been significantly reduced by my efforts. Well, I have to tell myself that don’t I?

Otherwise, why am I wasting my time like this with all these organic techniques, when I could so easily just spray the whole orchard with dieldrin or some other horrific poison? All the fruit for sale in the big supermarkets is sprayed with chemicals. S what are my options? Buy poisoned fruit, or try and grow clean, organic fruit? We are trying to live a pesticide free, low-key, creative, organic, carbon constrained, Post-modern peasant lifestyle. Everything costs more and takes longer and needs constant attention, but we are committed to living it.

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

Summer School Throwing Workshop Jan 6th to 8th – FULL

Posted on by

The second workshop on the 11th to the 13th of January is also now FULL

I have started a new waiting list for a third workshop for sometime early in February, yet to be determined. I already have 3 names, but need 8 to run the course.

Janine, Len Smith and I will be offering a 3 day throwing workshop over the summer break. Jan 6th to 8th.

We will be teaching throwing techniques for beginners and intermediate level, aimed at making larger forms.

This is NOT a Masterclass for advanced throwers. This workshop is aimed at beginner to intermediate level.

You will need to be able to center clay on the wheel, from there on we will help you make some larger forms, demonstrating exercises to give you confidence to tackle slightly larger projects. Progressing from whatever your current level of skill is.

I will be demonstrating a series of techniques such as top hatting and coil and throw building techniques. 

We will also be demonstrating construction techniques, assembling your thrown sections together to build slightly more complex or larger pieces. We will help you work at your own pace to gain confidence and increase the complexity of your forms, or the height and scale of your pots, as you choose.

The workshop runs for three days from 10 till 4pm on Monday 6th of January to Wednesday 8th of January.

Clay is provided, you will need to bring your throwing tools and lots of batts, a dozen or more. If you own an electrical heat gun, you can bring it along with your tools.

Tea and coffee are provided, please bring something to share for lunch.

Numbers are Limited, as we only have 8 wheels in the studio. First in best dressed.

Cost $375 for three days. Enrollment is confirmed after payment is made.

Bookings <hotnsticky@ozemail.com.au>

ACA Open Studio Weekend

Posted on by

This weekend is the Australian Ceramics Association, Open Studios.

We will be open from 10 to 4 each day. 

I have been continuing to work over the past few weeks. In particular, I have been doing some ‘kintsugi’ gold repair on a few of my pots with interesting cracks. 

Some 23 carat gold really lifts a slightly damaged pot.

I have also found time to make the weekly loaf of rye bread, and a tray of rock cakes to share with our visitors over the weekend.

Open studio 2024

Posted on by

We will be open for the next two weekends in November, 16th/17th. for the Southern Highlands Arts Trail then the ACA Open Studios, Ceramics Arts Trail that is happening Nationally on the 4th weekend of the 23rd and 24th of Nov. 

We have plenty of pots in the gallery, floral bowls, and Mixing bowls.

Celadon mugs, Floral mugs, Sgraffito mugs and Sgraffito plates.

I have some unglazed, wood fired Tea bowls that I have been fettling and finishing during the week.

And some wood fired porcelain bowls, glazed with traditional blue celadon. This bowl has some carbon inclusion in the exposed body and is quite subtle and very beautiful in a restrained sort of way.

The cherry crop is in full swing just now and we are able to pick a kilo of cherries every few days. We had bowls full of cherries on offer to our visitors last weekend. 

As we have eaten our fill of fresh cherries, during the week I made home made cherry pie and cherry tarts – because I can!

This is the only week of the year when we can do this. So I make an effort and do it. What else are evenings for?

The recipe optimistically said that it takes 15mins to de-pip a kilo of cherries. It too Janine and I  30 mins. 4 times longer, but worth it. Nothing worse than biting into a delicious looking cherry tart and breaking a tooth on a rouge cherry stone.

I made the recipe with only half the sugar and it is just about right for my taste. I made an almond short crust pastry, quite a bit of fiddling around, but the end result is vaguely sweet, pleasantly soft and slightly crunchy. 

I had to go to the workshop and make a dozen stainless steel tart rings. I found a little piece of stainless off-cut, sliced it up in to strips and spot welded them together into small 60 x 20 mm tart rings. Waste not, want not.

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

Wood kiln firing unpacked and fettled

Posted on by

I have just unpacked my latest wood kiln firing, just in time for the next 3 Open Studio sales weekends.

There are mixed results, as to be expected, but less seconds than usual. So that’s good.

I’m finally getting the hang of this new kiln and its pre-burnt wood fuel.

I always want to do better, and I keep trying, but I’m happy with what I’ve got. No complaints.

Something about the journey being more important than the destination really..

I tried 10 new clay body recipes. Blending sericite with kaolin based bodies to improve workability. Also some darker bodies.

full moon through clouds

I’ve been experimenting with ash glazes

Ash ‘jun’ glaze, with a light sprinkling of natural ash deposit crystals from the wood firing.

All the pots are now cleaned and fettled, 3 days work in all that, and hopefully nothing to show for it – if I’ve done it well!

Arts Trail – Open Studio 2024

Posted on by

We will be part of the Southern Highlands Arts Trail – Open Studios on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th weekends in November.

I’m back from my work in Korea and I hit the ground running. All the seeds and seedlings that I planted in late August, just before I left for Korea, were all burnt off in the severe frost event that swept through here in early September. However, all the over-wintering vegetables like peas, broad beans, asparagus and the brassicas are all thriving. So that is what we are eating at every meal these days. 



Because we only eat what we grow, our diet tends to go in long stretches of similar meals, we vary the actual mix for variety but I’ll be glad when the first of the summer crops comes on. That is always zucchini, they are so fast out of the starting blocks, along with radishes. 

However, I know that I’ll be glad to see the last of the ratatouille based summer meals and we can taste that first cauliflower again as the seasons come around. I think that it is a universal human failing to want what you don’t have. No matter how many cabbages I grow, I still hanker for a banana or a pine apple every now and then.

At the moment, I am just loving the smell of the tomato foliage as I brush past it when weeding. The smell of tomato leaves offers such promise of fresh salads and the long hot days of summer to come. 

The more established spring flowers in the flower beds around the pottery were not affected by the frost, and have gone on to bloom there little buds off. Its very cheerful and uplifting to look out the studio window and see a vista of spring blooms.

After the frost. Janine went out and bought some more early seedlings to get a bit of a head start for the summer garden, and now that I’m back, I spent all of my first few days planting seeds, weeding, mulching and mowing to get the place ready for the Open Studios Arts Trail, that is being held on ther last 3 weekwnds of November. But also to guarantee our summer food supply security.IMG_0869.jpegIMG_0871.jpegIMG_0872.jpeg

Janine transplanted some wild self-sown spinach seedlings, but they didn’t all take. I filled in the gaps inbetween with some extra seeds. The vegetable garden is looking good again with all the red poppies in flower now. The bees are going full speed ahead. Their little yellow saddle bags are full and bulgeing with pollen.

We already had a lot of pots made for the open studio sale before I left for Korea, but there was also a lot of bisque ware that I had prepared for a wood kiln firing, but I just couldn’t fit it in before I had to leave. So now that I’m back I have glazed all that work and packed the wood kiln.

13 hours to 1300. I think that I have finally found to best way to burn my pre-burnt and charred dead forest of kiln fuel timber.

The citrus grove is in full bloom and you can smell the fragrance of the citrus flowers from the pottery, if the wind is in the right direction. 

We will be open for three weekends in November, 9th/10th and 16th/17th. for the Southern Highlands Arts Trail then the ACA Open Studios, Ceramics Arts Trail that is happening Nationally on the 4th weekend of the 23rd and 24th of Nov. 

Keep us in mind and call in if you can. We have some lovely work to show you.

K-Pot Journal 4

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.