Put Your Foot on the Gas, Honey....

Raku firing
Originally uploaded by Bytemarks

I've been struggling recently with getting my kiln up to the necessary temperature. It just seemed to take too long and then it hovered about 100 degrees below where I wanted it to go. I'd look at the propane burner, monstrous channel for fire, fooling around with the air intake, the position, the angle. Why was it taking so long? Perhaps the burner was worn out? Its orifice somehow corroded? What to do...what to do....what to do....

This raku burner had behaved so admirably for hundreds of firings in the past.

Finally I called the manufacturer of the burner to ask his advice. "I'm having trouble getting it up to temperature. The burner's wimping out on me and it didn't used to do that. What, oh what, could it be?"

"Did you make any changes to your kiln lately?"

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did. I enlarged it by just a little, just enough to fit an extra inch of Buddha in."

"If you change something even a little, the interior volume changes by a significant amount, i.e.- change one thing and you change everything else in relationship to that one thing. Everybody looks to the thing that makes the most noise (the burner) and blames that. But did you turn up the pressure on the tank?"

"Uh...no."

I detect a slightly weary smile on the other end of the line. Perhaps he has heard this complaint more than a few times before. "You have to put your foot on the gas. Just like in your car. You want it to go faster; press the accelerator."

Sure enough. Tested this simple matter of cause and effect on two firings yesterday. Worked like a charm.

Main difficulty: figuring out what is the root cause, even though it was so direct, so simple and so right in front of me.

What is pure? What is holy?

I began work in ceramics in 1974, in the midst of the back-to-the-land movement, a time of reclaiming the "old", natural techniques of craftsmanship and calling them pure and holy. We had a half acre organic garden, mulched with seaweed from the Maine coastline. We fished for flounder and dug our clams and mussels from the flats. And I...I threw pots on a (handmade!) kickwheel and made all my own glazes.

One of the great liberations of practicing Zen with a big question...what am I, what is this?...is that I occasionally find those breakaway points, or you might call them points of freedom, or points of creative play.

So I've been pulling away from the path of standard glaze technique. Many other ceramic artists have been doing this! And I've gradually been exploring. What if I used a combination of glaze and casein paints..........and (oh, the purist may gringe in their bones!) flecks of gold glitter? Oh, playing with colors!!! Why has it taken me so long to allow it?

For this Buddha, I liked the over-all color of the greenish glaze. But I wanted something darker, with more play and movement in the tones. (by the way, I am now officially smitten with half-tone black, applied in a wash). Then, to cover a multitude of clay slip sins, I painted an undergarmet of yellow/black-washed/gold-flecked pigments.

Packed Up and Ready at a Moment's Notice...

We're heading out for the opening reception at Art/Not Terminal Gallery tonight. This black Buddha is nestled in a cozy transport of bubble wrap. Good to go....

And if you're in the Seattle environs come by to see the art work of several talented folks. Show will be running all month. But tonight, 7 - 10pm, there's going to be food, music and lots more art for sale.

Drinking Today's Cup of Tea

is bittersweet. Dark chocolate with a splash of momentary turquoise wonder. Ashy, warm, sustaining. I sip from this cup fired yesterday (during a brief break in the rain) and consider its qualities. The coarse clay body meets my fingers with only a thin glaze skin between us. Even now, the clay is alive, and breathing.

Action! Fire! Tea.....

Here, in Issaquah, in the area that is known as the foothills to the Cascade Mountain range, we get more rain than you can imagine. Even more than Seattle. Imagine that! The wind blows the clouds east and they pile up on our side of the mountain, paused by this rather extensive "road block". Then, of course, it rains. And rains.

Now in the midst of this changing season, it takes some getting used to. I've been waiting for several days for a window of non-raining weather so that I could start firing tea bowls.

Yesterday I fired the first of them. Wonderful! Exciting! A bit chilly, but that's okay. Working with a stress fracture in my foot, but that's okay. Ten minutes into my firing and it starts to pour, but even that's okay too. I watch from under cover as the rain hits the kiln and instantly transforms to steam.

After a couple of firings I'm done, and also quite happy with the first tea bowls. So I thoroughly wash one of them, heat up some water and drink a bowl of tea. Ahhhhhhhh...... Earl Gray tea with a definite aroma of smoke lingering in the bowl. Delicious!

Hand-made, Hand-weary

I've finished throwing and trimming 108 tea bowls as of today. Now all that remains is for my tired hands to rest, the pots to dry and the time to pass. By this time next week I'll begin firings.

For those of you in the vicinity of Seattle, I'll be hosting a tea party and open studio soon: "108 Tea Bowls/108 Buddhas".

Stay tuned!

Repetition vs. Originality....

yet another false dualistic idea. Today, after having made...oh, fifty or sixty tea bowls, I've felt so much delight for the character of each one. It reminded me of a wonderful book of potters' writings, A Potter's Companion. If you've never heard of it, I highly recommend it for its inspirations, stories and wisdom.

Here is a quote from that book, in the words of Alan Caiger-Smith: "Shapes which are repeated begin to mature without undergoing any obvious changes. The form evolves by itself, and if you compare two pots made to the same measurement at an interval of about five years you find that the shape has become more agreeable simply by being often made." Then he goes on to add this critical point: "I would say there is a difference between inattentive repetition, which leads eventually to something pretty vacant and facile, and repetition done with attention, which is really a growing thing, giving rise to the process of maturing that you only see long afterwards."