Kjell Hahn

Caught a bad cold this week and haven’t felt like writing.
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Still working on the site. There are just a few more things to write on one or two pages and it will be good enough to put up.-
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Oh, I have a bit of a story. After a bad day at work I was in a sour mood. exhausted, I was not looking forward to the long ride home. I slumped over the handle bars and slowly started to make my way up into the mountains and towards home. now about halfway along my commute there is a small elementary school placed oddly apart from any other buildings at the top of a mountain pass. I guess the government figured one school at the top of the hill would be cheaper to build than two- one in each town at the bottom. anyway I pass kids walking up and down each side of the mountain every day and they’ve taken to yelling out greetings to me in the mornings and evenings. Ive never talked to any of them but we’ve gotten to be on pretty familiar terms simply by saying “hellooooo!!!!” and “gooood morning!” a couple hundred times this year. so on this particularly bad day I kind of had my head down (I don’t like to look up at the endless incline) when I heard a “stop! Stop! Stop!” and almost hit this kid who threw his arms in front of me. in no mood to talk, I stopped. wearing a big yellow hat and smiling up at me he kept waving his arm up and down. he said “orei!, orei desu” – a way of saying thank you. then I noticed what all the waving was about, he had some chocolate in his hand… I tried not to take it but the sweet little kid insisted.
made the ride home a little easier.
sweet kid.

New Site Update:
For the last 4 days matt and I have been hammering away at the new site. Everything is very close to being done, but a couple of bugs in the system are keeping it from coming all together.. even though its close both of us are burned out on the thing and it will take at least another week or so before its online
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So what else? amusing story that illustrates the mess I deal with every day at my school, and why I will not be returning for the next school year in april.
____the other day some of the boys got in trouble for playing with the outlet. now, these are 14 year old boys in jr. high, not grade school.
How did this game work? well, they were jamming pencil lead into the outlet and electrocuting themselves on purpose, then calling their buddies over to try it. to put this in perspective, I recall a kid doing that at my school in 3rd grade.. it was a big joke at the time and I still remember it because no one could believe that someone older than a toddler would shove something in the outlet. Its pretty obvious what the result will be, even to a 8 year old.
Now at my school of delinquents there are 30 kids in a class, so about 15 boys in the room. The question is, how many of these future scientists and mathematicians lined up and voluntarily electrocuted themselves? the answer kind of makes me question evolution, because you’d think statistically at least one of em would drop over dead. But no, fourteen survived- free to pass on thier inquisitive little DNA to future generations.
tomorrow there will be something else, there always is.
___so while there is a lot of talk on the TV about the troubles of the American educational system, that we’re falling behind in math and science blah blah bla.. obviously we need not fear our brothers overseas. stupid knows no borders.

finally got the waeda pots photographed.
for now ill just post a picture of one pot i liked, a teabowl with three little feet holding it up.
i wont be posting any more galleries on the blog though. in the future galleries will all go on the main site. the blog will only have one or two images per topic..
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we’re getting pretty close on the new site now. matt and i have started testing the new layout. its much bigger so it will take a while to get all the kinks out… but it will be a huge improvement on what i have now.

woodfired stoneware teabowl with natural wood-ash glaze
2009

Back from Tokyo.. making the gallery rounds in ginza i came across two basic types of exhibitions: underwhelming contemporary, and established artists’ work from 30-50 years ago. Im sure there is some changeling contemporary work out there somewhere but 99% of the stuff falls into one of the two categories. Its really hard to see any kind of framework one could use to gradually move up in the art world. One’s generally in or out. mahn, when are the cool kids going to invite me to their parties?
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Also saw a few of my friends’ exhibitions. No need to critique the shows- they’re sitting on the same bench with me.
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I did finally get my hands on the waseda pots. Some came out well, good test pieces for clay bodies and construction techniques. Ill post a few images soon.
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In the meantime here’s a recent landscape assemblage drawing.
Acrylic, ink, pastel on paper.

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i took a few photos of new drawings last night. i have been trying to organize all my photos with Apertre but that program has be at my wits end. i dont see why something meant to streamline your portfolio should slow the computer down to a snail’s pace. even more it’s vault system for backing up photos makes these huge 40 gigabyte files that can barely be transferred from drive to drive.. accidentally erase a folder and you have to replace the entire thing… then if you want to edit anything in photoshop aperture loves to make duplicates of everything. So I don’t know what to do. I know jimmy just organizes everything in folders. im almost tempted to do that, but then i’d lose the ability to cross-reference images and quickly label things. anyone have a solution?
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anyway, here’s a new mushi drawing.
ink, acrylic and pastel on paper.

ive been humming along with a new group of Landscape Assemblage drawings. have about 40 completed this year. im quite pleased with the results.
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still havent heard anything about pots fired at waseda. Im going to the guy’s tokyo exhibition this weekend so i should be able to arrange a date to pick everything up. he doesnt do very well with calling people back.
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also on the ceramics front shiro sent me a cell phone picture of a sculpture from the sasayama firing. nice of him to send the pic but im not sure how i feel about him balancing it on the top of another pot’s lid.

my old friend john dix is having a show at the Kobo gallery in Seattle this month. also running a few pottery workshops- but they cost a bit of money to attend.

hey now, over a week has passed since ive updated the blog. I can partially blame this on the weather. Last week it was in the teens and the bicycle commute had me pretty much brain dead by the time I get back home in the evenings.
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in any case, not much news.
Haven’t heard anything about the other kiln I put pots in- the one Waseda owns. im kind of giving up on the guy running the place. There are still a couple other kilns in the area I know about, so its better to just walk away if the guy isn’t serious about it. When I finally get the pots ill post images.
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Other than that ive been drawing a bit in the evening. have about 30 new landscape assemblage drawings on paper.
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Also matt craven has been working in the new site.. its slow but progress is being made.
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couldnt go but john sent me some pictures from the unloading.
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very good news–>the second chamber, the back part of the kiln i was in charge of, had the best results to date. that area of the kiln has been a struggle pretty much ever since it was built. ive been in charge of firing it the last four times and have learned a lot each time. its a huge relief to get that right.
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bad news–> my pots didnt come out so well. probably due to the clay body more than anything. no big deal really. better to have a good firing than a few good pots, especially since i could only send a few before we started.
other bad news: the temperaure was a little high in the first chamber and a lot of john’s pots a little too glassy for his taste. not a failure though.

PHOTO:second chamber with door taken off. usually there are more cold areas and many of the pieces get too much oxygen. oxidized clay has a washed out – somewhat sickly look to it . usually not desirable. the deep browns in the pots on every shelf show good reduction.

unloading two kilns this weekend. well, someone’s unloading them- probably not me.
since im back in onishi i cant travel across the country to help with the sasayama kiln.
i also havent been asked to help with the local kiln we fired before christmas at Waseda’s high school . I would seem like an obvious choice since i know more about the process than almost anyone living here, but the teacher who runs it is much too concerned with trying to get it on with my neighbor. (not sure how to phrase it.. he’s married and 60 but that never seems to be an issue with japanese guys). so hes asked the 90lb girl with no experience and or interest in ceramics to give him a hand in the hot dirty kiln. good luck dude. less work for me.
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heres a quick shot of the kiln being stoked at sasayama. i think the temp is about 1000 degrees centigrade… so still a fairly low temp. towards the end of the fire you’d burn your hands off if you tried to stoke like that.