TeaChat

thanks robert

the pink feldspar sounds interesting

can you please share your kiln/s and firing methods ?

mainly gas and or woodfire ?

thanks !
cory

ps thank you from k-chan and i ! MAHALO !

While finding an awesome place to camp, Clear Lake, just off that granddaddy of US highways US12, I got skunked on my pink feldspar search. I did bring home some wonderful pinkish-marroon basalt type rock however which could prove to be interesting either fritted down for a raku glaze or beefed up to fire higher. It's pretty much weathered down and ready to use as is....

Firing? I sold my big gas car kiln to a local potter last year when I tore down my studio and now that I'm rebuilt I'm building kilns as well. Have 2 electrics, a small reduction kiln which holds 8 chawan (thank you Tsujimura Shiro for that) and am in the process of building a smallish kiln (30-40 cf) on a trailer which can be fired with gas, used motor oil, cooking oil, and perhaps wood. I like the mobility idea as it could be taken to the fuel, taken to the clay, or shared with friends at a variety of venues. The Koreans built their kilns near the fuel source while the Japanese built theirs near the clay and this one could be either.

Cheers,
R

Rob,

Another extraordinary chawan!

The caption reads, 'with repair'. How is a chawan repaired and particularly how did you repair this chawan?

Thank you.

ronin ceramurai wrote:

thanks robert

the pink feldspar sounds interesting

can you please share your kiln/s and firing methods ?

mainly gas and or woodfire ?

thanks !
cory

ps thank you from k-chan and i ! MAHALO !

While finding an awesome place to camp, Clear Lake, just off that granddaddy of US highways US12, I got skunked on my pink feldspar search. I did bring home some wonderful pinkish-marroon basalt type rock however which could prove to be interesting either fritted down for a raku glaze or beefed up to fire higher. It's pretty much weathered down and ready to use as is....

Firing? I sold my big gas car kiln to a local potter last year when I tore down my studio and now that I'm rebuilt I'm building kilns as well. Have 2 electrics, a small reduction kiln which holds 8 chawan (thank you Tsujimura Shiro for that) and am in the process of building a smallish kiln (30-40 cf) on a trailer which can be fired with gas, used motor oil, cooking oil, and perhaps wood. I like the mobility idea as it could be taken to the fuel, taken to the clay, or shared with friends at a variety of venues. The Koreans built their kilns near the fuel source while the Japanese built theirs near the clay and this one could be either.

Cheers,
R

robert

can you share what the tsujimura shiro 8 chawan kiln looks like ?

this sounds cool !

cory

ronin ceramurai wrote: am in the process of building a smallish kiln (30-40 cf) on a trailer which can be fired with gas, used motor oil, cooking oil, and perhaps wood. I like the mobility idea as it could be taken to the fuel, taken to the clay, or shared with friends at a variety of venues. The Koreans built their kilns near the fuel source while the Japanese built theirs near the clay and this one could be either.

Cheers,
R

I love that!!
Bring the art to the people....
Wap them upside the head with it.
Man all I can think of is The Who
"I can pull up by the curb,
I can make it on the road,
Goin' mobile
I can stop in any street
And talk with people that we meet
Goin' mobile."
Keep me moving "

Rob,

Another extraordinary chawan!

The caption reads, 'with repair'. How is a chawan repaired and particularly how did you repair this chawan?

Thank you.

Thank you for your generous comment Carl.

I've done repairs on many types of chawan for the local chajin including Hagi bowls which leak due to the porosity of the clay, a Nakazato chawan with an "s" crack in the bottom, and pieces which have chips on the rim. This particular piece was one of mine in which the slip separated from the body of the piece in places and I thought it worth the effort to fix it. The affected area underneath the slip was filled with an epoxy putty as was an area on the rim which I then gold leafed. This is a common method of reparing chawan with chips etc. to the glaze. When doing repairs, as much as possible, I always try to do any fixes on non-drinking surfaces ie. from the outside. In Japan, repairs are not necessesarily thought as flaws to a piece as they do add character to the chawan and add to it's history.

Best wishes,
R

Sure Cory,

Tsujimura-san has got to be one of the best IMHO chatou potters alive today. The last time I visited him he was firing one of his smallest kilns, one with 6 chawan in it doing hikidashi guro. His "kiln" was simply a hole in the slope of a hill which he lined with firebrick and dug a flue exit hole uphill. Fired with a rotary oil burner he reached temp in a few hours. Mine is more sophisticated as I live in the city..... basically a refractory lined box with a hole on the top. Serves the same purpose however.... I may have a picture of Tsujimra-sans kiln on my website in the travel section.

Cheers,
R

Robert,

I have an acquaintance, Steve Davis from California, that has built a portable, gas fired, fiber kiln. The whole story with lots of images can be found at the following link:
http://www.kazegamas.com/kazegama.htm

Thought this might be of interest,
Michael

Robert,

I have an acquaintance, Steve Davis from California, that has built a portable, gas fired, fiber kiln. The whole story with lots of images can be found at the following link:
http://www.kazegamas.com/kazegama.htm

Thought this might be of interest,
Michael

Michael that's a great link!

I'd seen the Kazegama before and thought it a viable alternative to 7 day anagama firings from an aesthetic as well as environmental POV. Steve is thinking outside the box which I like.

I mentioned Tsujimura Shiro a post or two ago and as I said he is doing awesome work. Never having apprenticed with anyone he is very much thinking outside the box as well, as all his kilns are very crude, very small anagamas which he fires with used oil and then throws ash into much like Steve but not as technically sophisticated. His largest is about 8 feet long and smallest is the afore mentioned 6 chawan hikidashi guro kiln..... if you can call it that. A black sheep in the heirarchical world of Japanese ceramics, he was however the person that former Japanese prime minister Hosokawa Morihiro (who does awesome work as well) chose to apprentice with..... out of all the potters in Japan. When I met him last in 2003 we talked of the "anagama boom" now sweeping the US and he laughed "mina-san wa kuroshiteimasu ne!" which in this case means that everyone is doing a lot of unnecessary hard work. About his small kilns and firing methods he said that his learning curve is incredibly fast as compared to most anagama potters as he can fire the same kiln twice in one week if he wants to as compared to many potters who fire their kilns 2 or 3 times a YEAR! He also said that modern kilns are too clean as his are very much throwbacks, crudely constructed with dirt floors and the ware tumble stacked inside, with certain kilns for yakishime and haikaburi, others for shino ware and others yet for kohiki and chosen types of ware. He never destroys anything after it's fired and as a consequence the brush and forest on his property is littered with work. When asked about this he replied "the work is aging". If you go to my site there are photos of him, his son Yui, and his kilns. Robert Yellin's site has work/info on him as well.....

Cheers,
R

Thank you, Rob.

I've seen new chawan being sold with gold inlays, inserts, repairs ? - as if the artist was incorporating 'the repair' as part of the chawan's decorative element.

Having also seen older chawan with silver or gold repairs, I was very curious how this was accomplished. The bowls with the repairs seem to have a certain presence and the repair enhanced the bowl rather than detracting from it, exactly as in the repair to your chawan.

Kind regards.

ronin ceramurai wrote:Sure Cory,

Tsujimura-san has got to be one of the best IMHO chatou potters alive today. The last time I visited him he was firing one of his smallest kilns, one with 6 chawan in it doing hikidashi guro. His "kiln" was simply a hole in the slope of a hill which he lined with firebrick and dug a flue exit hole uphill. Fired with a rotary oil burner he reached temp in a few hours. Mine is more sophisticated as I live in the city..... basically a refractory lined box with a hole on the top. Serves the same purpose however.... I may have a picture of Tsujimra-sans kiln on my website in the travel section.

Cheers,
R

robert

thank you kindly !

wow. tsujimura shiro !

amazing . love his ido chawan and amazing large tsubo.
i have his catalog from a show a few years back in new york.

amazing !

thanks for the information on the 8 chawan kama !

cool ! inspirational !

Robert -- how do you produce the chirimen kodai?

Robert -- how do you produce the chirimen kodai?

Thank you for your question. It has a lot to do with the clay body as while I purchase clay, I use it only as a starting point, adding clay I dig locally or source as cast offs from mining concerns. Also, I add sand in a variety of grits and amounts to open up the body which also makes it more refractory, raising the vitrification point and in effect "softening" the clay which I favor when making chatou. I tend to work the clay quite soft as well slowly carving it on my kick wheel. Below is a kuodai from a shino chawan from a year or two ago which I liked.

Finally a link to Robert Yellins site regarding koudai albiet those pictured are from guinomi.

http://www.e-yakimono.net/html/kodaik.html

Best,
R

While we're on the topic of materials, here are 2 kohiki pieces done with differing clay bodies albiet both sourced locally, but the same slip and the same glaze.

ronin ceramurai wrote:

Robert -- how do you produce the chirimen kodai?

Thank you for your question. It has a lot to do with the clay body as while I purchase clay, I use it only as a starting point, adding clay I dig locally or source as cast offs from mining concerns. Also, I add sand in a variety of grits and amounts to open up the body which also makes it more refractory, raising the vitrification point and in effect "softening" the clay which I favor when making chatou. I tend to work the clay quite soft as well slowly carving it on my kick wheel. Below is a kuodai from a shino chawan from a year or two ago which I liked.

Finally a link to Robert Yellins site regarding koudai albiet those pictured are from guinomi.

http://www.e-yakimono.net/html/kodaik.html

Best,
R

robert beautiful koudai !

can you please share more information about your small hybrid 8 chawan kama ?

i'd like to build one. sounds cool

hikidashi goro and other firing techniques using combustibles i could gather here in the islands would be wonderful with this 'test' kiln.

we have access to macadamia nut shells as a by product from the industry on the big island of Hawai'i. was thinking this might be cool to fire hawaiian clay with macadamia nut shells.

aloha

cory