Kjell Hahn

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.

i survived the week long 24 hour work schedule at the kiln. wont know the results of our work for a week. everything went smoothly and pretty much as planned. well,the pyrometers (temp) werent working properly but we got all the cones( also a temp indicator) where we wanted them. the pots john pulled from the kiln were the best ive seen so far..
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heres a group photo at the end of the firing.

(from left to right)
chika dix, john dix, richie dix, shiro ikuma, amy farkas, kjell hahn

we’re supposed to be ending the firing just before midnight on the 31st.
good times.
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a recent oni landscape drawing…

site still on auto pilot while im out of town.
heres another photo from landscape assemblage series.
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id personally like to thank the baby jesus getting me off work for the next couple weeks. i dont think i could have survived much longer.
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now im out of town with no internet so the next few posts will be on auto mode.
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heres a photo from landscape assemblage series.
these paintings wont be on the site until the new site is up and running. matt craven almost has the entire thing re-written.

finished up an anagama kiln firing at Waseda yesterday. the school pays students to do all the work so i just sat back with the other old people and relaxed. wont know the results until i get back in town from John’s firing.
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heres a photo from the loading:

going back to tamba sasayama to fire john dix’s anagama kiln. I have a couple pots in the kiln but my main reason for going up there is to learn more about the firing process with the hope I can get better results out of the firings up here in Gunma.
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i have two more anagama firings in the next few weeks. any pots i want fired have to be done in the next day and a half, so thats all ive been working on the last couple of days. i even took off work friday to try and get everything done in time.
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finally took pictures of some of the pots.
overall they came out ok… especially considering the organizational situation. the environment inside the kiln looked fairly consistent. no dead areas in the kiln but then again only a few pieces that had exciting/dynamic surfaces.
guinomi 1, teabowl 1 and bowl 3 had fair wood-kiln fired effects.
glaze results were ok as well but again nothing surprising or terribly interesting going on.

i should have had pictures of more pots up by now but a friend of chiaki’s just gave me a pottery wheel, kiln furniture, tools and a smaller hand wheel for making sculptures. the electric wheel has barely been used and a better build than my old one. a new one costs over a thousand dollars and this guy could have easily sold it online. lucky me.
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i ended up rewiring the ceramics studio and building a new system of tables. its still somewhat temporary since im installing a new floor next month but now there are now 2 stations for wheel throwing and 2 stations for hand building or making sculptures. I can officially invite someone over to make pots together now.
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