Pine Ash

[LilyT]

Interesting! Thanks for the info. Now, to bombard you with questions: How often do you fire your noborigama? How many days? How many people? What wood? Do you sometimes fire a pot several times?

 

Thanks,

Jim

 

 

Jim (and Lily),

 

Sorry for very late reply.... been away and very busy. Plus missed the questions here in this thread.

 

The number of firings a year varies. Many years ago it was fired pretty consistently 5-6 times a year. As time has gone on and my prices (and skills) have risen and my (ahem.... ) age has also risen, it is more typically 3-4 times a year now in recent times. This year (2012) I have not yet fired it at all !!!!

 

I was taken unexpectedly ill back in January and it kicked the crap out of me for a very long time. After a little while off, I was barely able to teach my three college classes.... one of which was only a ceramic art history lecture-type one. I was not allowed to drive for a few weeks and my wife had to drive me to the school. I was on exercise restrictions. Wedging 2 pounds of clay for a demo literally wore me out. It took me a day to recover from simply teaching three classes the day before. Awful.

 

I am only just getting back to almost normal. So my winter production this year was literally non-existant, and I have been shipping work for exhibitions and such out of my my backstock. I was invited to present/show at the Mungyeong teabowl festival in S. Korea in late April/early May so I was off there and then to Japan for a month... so that has also delayed recovering my production here. So this year likely it will end up maybe being only 2-3 firings. Bad .... but there is nothing I can really do about it.

 

My firings cycle is for a nobori.....unlike anagama. So it is realitively short cycle. Typically about a 42-44 hour cycle from cold to last chamber completed. Then a 3 day cooling period. The last chamber (or the last two chambers) are usually fired using a youhen charcoal technique (ala Bizen-yaki) so all those many pounds of hardwood charcoal added at the end of the stoking really retards the cooling a lot on the back end of the kiln as it slowly burns off............... as well as slightly slowing the cooling of the chamber BEFORE the ones with the charcoal due to heat energy leakage through the common wall.

 

I used to use only pine and hemlock to fire for years and years and years. I got it all from sawmill scrap. Some from a mill about 3 miles from here. For about 30 years, every scrap of wood burned in that kiln was waste wood.....destined for landfills to be burned in big piles and accomplish absolutely nothing with it. The mills loved me.... they didn't have to pay to dump it. With some wood cut from my own property and some blowdown.

 

I still love firing with pure pine ..... the flame is very active and long with great volitiles ..... and great ash...... but it is unfortunately the smokiest wood there is. And I am getting concerned with the visuals as the area around me here gets less and less rural. Plus the lumber wood industry here in southern NH has completely died off..... so the sourcing for lots of nice pine slab and edgings has pretty much dried up for me.

 

So I now am mainly using a combination of maple and oak hardwood, with pine and hemlock as the "finishing" wood. I get as much scrap wood from mills and such as I can (going much futrther afield to get this) and cut some stuff off my own land and also use the blow-down that the winters produce on my property. And I also now buy some prepared wood from one local woodcutter.

 

I have one part-time apprentice/friend that helps me fire most of the time now. He has been with me about 12 years now. He also recently got his BFA from the college I teach at. The two of us can easily handle the kiln. I designed it and built it with the intent of being able to fire it totally by myself. And many times I have done so and I still do so. The last firing last early winter I did all by myself. It is WAY tougher now that I am older ( ).... but still doable. Not sure how much longer that will be possible....... but we'll see.

 

As to refiring pieces.... yes, absolutely. Years and years ago in the rural area around Mashiko in Japan I came across a potter that was making work that was astonishing in that there were more feldspathic and quartz rocks in his claybody than there was clay. The work totally intrigued me. I began experimenting wit hthe idea using local granite and quartz. REALLY tough to form....... and high failure rate...... but the firing results are worth it. I have found that those pieces require between 7 and 9 firings in my kiln in either the stackabl;e area in the dogi or the first chamber to reach full "maturity". After only one firing the pieces could be used in place of a Surform rasp ( )!

 

SO... there you have it.

 

best,

 

.........................john

 

 

hi, John!

 

Wow, that was so full of interesting content! Thanks for taking the time to relate

all that. And my goodness, that is quite a struggle you've had coping with all your

work and life while ill... hope you have a full recovery soon.

 

I feel like I am getting quite an education thanks to you and Jim. I hadn't realized

a noborigama was relatively short firing for instance. There is so much to learn -

good thing it's all so fascinating. In fact I googled youhen and got to your explanations

on teachat :-).

 

So, firing for 44 hours by yourself or just one assistant sounds... strenuous. The

excitement must keep you alert.

 

I'm going to poke around your website more now :-). From your Bio it sounds like

you came to woodfiring from your art and personal experience and then brought

it back to Japan. If you cared to comment more on how you developed your

techniques and artistic vision with woodfiring, I'd love to hear more about that.

(But I'd understand too if you don't have the time or energy. )Can you recommend a

good book on wood firing technique that explains why things happen the way

the do under different circumstances? Nothing beats experience but forewarned

is forearmed.

 

Thank you so much for sharing your work and thoughts!

 

Warmest regards,

Lily

[Trevor wheeler]

Getting much better natural ash glazing using just pine for the anagama instead of pine and oak.

 

 

 

Dear Off Center,

 

Your picture of your cup is absolutely beautiful. I too love wood firing but am limited to electric.

 

I know this is likely not the spot to post this but a few years back in my hopefulness to find a glaze similar to the wood glaze look I found a recipe in ceramics monthly for fake wood ash electric firing.

 

While not perfect, it does work. And if you play with it you can definitely get different finishes from shiny to matt by adjusting the firing temperature and clay bodies. I used speckled clay and it worked beautifully.

 

If anyone wants this recipe let me know or simply look it up in ceramics monthly. It is worth a try if you are feeling that not having a wood fired look is problematic in your repertoire of electric glazing colors.

 

Nelly

 

Please post recipe and pics of some of you pots....Trevor