anagama wednesday

fourth day of firing

there are three thrushes competing for top chorister this morning at four-fifty am as I walk through the wood. it is a humid, rather grey morning, but I can still see the waning moon high in the sky. the kiln is crackling so loudly that Gas doesn’t hear me and I make him jump. this is Kamataki, the sound of the kiln feeding. when it stops you must feed it more.

Gas and Ko have been stoking with split hazel all night and now there is a huge ember bed covering all the pots around the firebox, which must be reduced, so we change to softwood, close the lower firemouth and open the top one. we can see the pots clearly, Svend’s like a huge pale moon behind Gas’s smaller one.

so now the whole firemouth is crammed with wood, one third sticking out, until the two thirds inside is consumed and we push the rest in over the top of the embers. there is not going to be enough of this exact width and length of wood, and I will soon have to wake Gas again.

the thrush seems quieter this morning. a pair of chiff chaffs are around, magpies waking up with complaining hoarse calls, an owl hoots. and again I am aware of the traffic sound suddenly.

on the next stoke I hear a pot fall with a ting – some partially burned wood slipped down the edge of the ember heap – there is a red flame at the blowhole, and a puff of black smoke, a mini version of what the chimney will do later on. not all the fuel can burn in the kiln straight away, and some of the gases ignite on their way out.

at eight-thirty we have run out of the wood, so Gas is up again, and now the firing has to be slower, using light two-year-old spruce (Christmas tree) stacked solid in the firemouth and allowed to burn right through so that only when the flame starts to burn outside the kiln is it pushed in, to reduce the ember pile. the pots round the edge of the firebox are in danger of being knocked when the ember is this high, and there is not enough room for more wood to burn properly. Gas gives the embers a good rake, and we can see that one of my pots has fallen against one of John Butler’s. later on it is fished upright again.

the wood stacked in the fire mouth plugs it; Gas calls it a “wooden lid”, so that no door is needed, and stoking is simplified. another technique from Japan, although Shiho Kanzaki does use doors, with wire handles, as do most western anagama potters. we spend the day keeping the kiln quiet, plugging the firemouth. it’s hot and humid. at night it is more comfortable to work with heat and there is a better draught. Ko arrives at eight-thirty in the evening, and ups the adrenalin rate; we know that when he comes the kiln will really get going.

I made a teabowl for the raku firing today .. slightly daunting task as it is my first. anyway, Gas approves, after I follow his suggestion that the base of the inside needs to be concave, rather than convex, as teabowls have the tea whisked in them, so a “pond” in the bottom is a good idea.