Kjell Hahn

took myself a vacation. went to Oshima onsen, a hot spring bath town, in northern Gunma and stayed in the oldest ryokan, or Japanese style hotel, in the country. didn’t have the money to get one of the fancy rooms but staying there everyone had access to the same group of baths. and anyway, the cheaper rooms were in the oldest part of the building.. fascinating place, the original structure was began in the late 1600’s and as they added on over the years it has become this 8 floor complex built into the side of a mountain. kind of a confusing maze of creaky old halls and elevators and this strange cave-like tunnel linking the buildings.
-
Of course there are older onsens in japan, but as the oldest hotel hey had all these original documents laid out in a long glass case in the front of the building- guests and bits of history about the place. they even had the original proposal to build the building from the 1670’s laying out.
impressive place.

went to the temples with fuyuko’s family for the new year. we went to an old capital of japan, kamakura. someone in their family was buried next to budda’s tooth at engakuji temple. so we paid our respects and gave the priest a lot of money to pray with us for a few minutes.

(colored dots and lines refer to attached map)

-
To get to work everyday i ride my bike about 25 km each way across a mountain pass to the next town. the map attached covers maybe 40 percent of the trip home. I live to the north along the blue line but lost too much resolution trying to fit it on the screen. i work at the bottom of the map at the yellow dot.
-
the other day I planned to go to a hot spring bath house (onsen) partway home at the purple dot. since the bathhouse is cheaper after 5pm and the swine flu got me out of work at 3:30 i decided to do a little exploring. normally the yellow line takes me down hill to Minano town and then i have to climb back up as I come around the back of the mountain. it might not look like much on the map but its significant on a bicycle and you kinda get tired of sweating up the same hill after 200th time. All that going up and down seemed inefficient and gave me an idea. a little mountain climb through terraced farms and forest seemed like a pleasant alternative to the crowded street I normally use, even if there were a few more ups. i didnt realize it at the time but the mountain between the two is 600m – 1800 feet tall; more than a few ups. Anyway, without the benefit of looking at a map i was fairly certain that if i made a straight shot across the nearest mountain the bathhouse would be waiting for me on the other side. With an hour and a half of sunlight left I took the dark red path in the direction I assumed the bath was in. While more difficult than my usual course, I enjoyed the quaint little farm houses chiseled into the side of hills, no cars and a view of the surrounding town. The unfamiliar area made the whole outing feel like one of my old bike trips across the country.
-
after several minutes up a steep incline I met an old man who told me the street wasn’t a dead end. good news. Unfortunately he couldn’t provide any details on where it would take me. I kept on going until I came to a clearing where the street began to go back down, disappearing behind another clump of mountains (orange dot on map). I stopped to access the situation figuring the street would probably just wind back to the main road and that my little wilderness trek had already ended. Ive done a lot of unmapped riding on mountain roads and learned that most just lead back to the bigger roads. Finding interesting, out of the way routes is quite uncommon.
-
Standing there overlooking Chichibu city I heard a rusting sound down the cliff in front of me. Halfway expecting to find a wild bore I looked over the edge. No pig, but I saw one of those old ladies permanently bent over at nearly right angles you find all over the Japanese countryside. I didn’t know what she was doing since there was no garden or house nearby. I called down to ask directions and she immediately stopped fidgeting with some dirt pile and scrambled up the cliff to meet me. clearly not one to get many visitors she decided to compress a normal week’s worth of conversation into our brief encounter. Now I can speak Japanese pretty well and was only asking directions but found myself completely lost after the first few sentences of this woman’s ramblings. She went on about a relative in France, then japanese-american relations and somehow we ended up on the subjects of the edo period, the meji revolt, ancient gold routes and am pretty sure she brought up something about outer space. When I told her I was trying to get to the onsen on the other side of the mountain she lit up. “oh, oh. Wanda! Wanda! Go Go! Yes! Yes!” she belted out while jumping side to side with her arms in the air. apparently I was on some kind of trade route that hadn’t been used in 100 years. She insisted i continue on but was a little concerned about me running into ghosts that had never met a foreigner before with it being a forgotten path and all. She assured me that if I made a lot of noise so as not to startle them I’d be able to make it across the mountain safely. Maybe I looked hesitant or something because she did another of her one legged “wanda! Wanda! Go! Go!” dances in an attempt to urge me up the mountain. –wow, this woman was a lucky find. usually when you tell an old lady you plan to enter a mountain forest just before sunset you get a lot of “muri! Ikenai wa!” “that’s impossible, you cant go that way!” No, my new friend may have been out of her mind but she was all about adventure. I had to find this path that possibly led to gold, riches, ghosts or maybe even outer space.
-
I took the road up an increasingly difficult slope to the end of the dark red line. Here there was one last building on a dead end street. I didn’t see any way to continue on, only a small creek bed that went up the mountain. No pavement, no signs, no more road. The crazy lady had been too insistent about this thing for this to all end so I entered the forest near the creak in search of some way to continue on. I climbed up several meters along a retaining wall and found that there really was a way cleared into the forest. I pulled my bicycle over my shoulder and hiked up.
-
Now after 4:00pm the sun had sunk low enough that the mountain valley was already in shadow. if I was going to make it to the top before dark I had to hurry. I checked my flashlight and pushed forward. I made good time and got just below the mountain ridge when the path suddenly branched off in two directions. I followed both as far as I could but they just faded off into nothing. to the right I could make out some dark shapes deeper in the forest- maybe caves or cliffs? I wasn’t sure, either way they werent going to get me to an onsen. I didnt understand why the path would just stop so close to the top. I had all these ideas of ghosts and ancient riches floating around in my head and was just a minute or two away from the top. i knew i could make it up, path or no path. more than anything i wanted to continue on.. once i cleared that ridge the rest of the way would be all downhill. On the other hand I had no cell phone reception or compass, one light sweatshirt and a little thing of milk with me. I didnt even have a map or know for certain how close the onsen was. Realizing that if I lost the path in the last minutes of light i might have an incredibly long night ahead of me, my only choice was to stop and turn around.
-
facing South down the mountain I could see the last sliver of the sun as it fell behind the horizon. I turned on my flashlight, shifted my bicycle to the other shoulder, and hurried down as fast as I could.
-
Someday I gotta find the “wonder wonder” world the mountain lady jumped up and down about.

(home near end of dark red line along the “wanda wanda” gold route)

during the firing chiaki divided half the troops to work on the kiln and half to help him paint a set for an upcoming flamenco performance in tokyo. i had very little to do with painting it but got to see the performance at the Ginza Donchou Theater.　I’ve seen three of chiaki’s flamenco shows so far and this was the best; both the dancers and the set.
-
watching the show and seeing how everything came together got me thinking about his ability to fire the kiln without ever touching a pot. he has a knack for working in chaos and getting the people around him to sort it all out for him. His set of canvas with leaves stomped into the paint, veneer haphazardly nailed together, aluminum foil and string got plenty of ridicule from the stage grips that had to set it up, but none of that came across in the audience. impressive.
-
Heres a picture fuyuko took of the set-up. I like the director’s computer with a desktop image of him looking into a mirror at 4 other images of himself. I never would have guessed that a successful person in the art world would be a narcissist.

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.
-
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.
-

mr. kuehnle requested kiln pictures. i only have a few taken so far. had to buy a grinder and whatnot to clean off the pots. more to come soon.
-
also running back to the car in the rain today i ended up stepping in a big pile of poop. probably not a story i should be bringing up but this was human dootie, and fresh- if that’s the right word. I was only in the store for maybe 5 minutes before running back to the car and someone had turned the place into a warzone. i guess they really had to go but who poops in a parking lot in the middle of a thurday afternoon? weird.
besides, the only people in that store were a bunch of old ladies.
-
pots:

teabowl with natural ash glaze

guinomi– small sake cup with shino/ash glaze

accidentally erased every art related photograph i had.. got to spend the better part of the afternoon trying to undo the mess. probably only lost several hours of work but im not happy about it. aperture lumps all the photos into one file so if i do something stupid like erase a folder, repairing it takes the better part of the day… i wish i knew a better solution for storing my photos.
-
also some 14 year old kid tried to start a fight with me at school because i wouldnt let him draw on and pour glue on the desk. he stood up pretending to throw some trash away and body checked me with his shoulder twice. when i grabbed him his buddy jumped up behind me screaming bloody murder.. i thought the situation was going to get real ugly real fast but somehow got everyone in their seats before we got in the newspaper. this is the 3rd time some kid has tried to start something with me at this school…. i cant wait to be done with that place.
-

kilns been going for a while now.
-
we hit 1240 degrees last night but im not sure if that will be enough. most of the wood has been used up as well as everyone’s pep. we did have the good fortune of the local shaman stopping by to light the kiln in her white robes though. she talked to the kiln god and put on a good performance for all. the shamen muttered and had to speak in tongues to communicate with the spirits. i guess it wouldnt really make any sense for the spirits to speak japanese or they would never be able to talk to gods from other countries. thats the kind of stuff you have to know if you are going to be a shamen. it looked and sounded like hard work with all the groaning and that strange expression on her face. anyway, the kiln gave us a weather report which has been mostly accurate so far. she (kilns a lady) also said that some of the days we would have trouble getting the temperature up. she was right on about that. after 4 days of sleepless nights and near constant alcohol consumption by all the firing has become somewhat disorganized. i think this is the difficulty the kiln god referred to. not to worry, she said in the end all would work out and we’d have some nice pots to show for our work. good to hear that. i would hate to do all this work and have the kiln god ruin it all.
-
back to work…

The 4th day of firing chiaki horikoshi’s anagama kiln in japan.
Still a long way to go and a lot of wood to get in the kiln.

nyusu:
had the head of the school district come and watch my classes yesterday. Since im quitting the job I tried to do as little preparation for the classes as possible- (usually I have about 4 minutes, so I thought he should see things the way they usually are. )somehow it went quite well, even with all the strange old guys in black suits standing around the back of the room. i figured bossman would helpfully critique my lessons afterward. instead he asked me if I had any complaints about the teachers I work with. Obviously he doesn’t know me very well.. I get myself in enough trouble complaining about people I care about and this guy wants my opinion about a group of people who have been screwing me over for the last 8 months. I found it hard to keep myself from going into a complete rant, but I managed to bite my tongue enough to sound positive in my criticism(s). Bossman wants me to visit his office if anything ever bothers me. thanks. I cant think of anything good coming from my being honest. I have no illusion about this guy wanting to look out for me, he just wants dirt on the other teachers. If he wanted to help he might begin with removing our 30% pay cut.
-
so recently thinking about work and also slow ceramic production before the firing had me in less than desirable spirits. we start loading the kiln in two days so at least I don’t need to worry about that anymore. I had a difficult time making anything on the wheel that really satisfied me. Koie Ryoji says that when you are frustrated with your work, you should concentrate harder and work through the mistakes. even if he’s right that can be hard to see during the process and at a certain point you end up second guessing yourself and making worse pots then when you started. At least with me, if im not relaxed I cant work with clay.
-
chiaki kiln loading starts on the 14th. firing goes from the 19th to the 23rd or 24th
-
recent drawing:

landscape assemblage/ oni landscape sketch

we’ve started getting the kiln ready for the firing, cutting wood and cleaning up the area. looking forward to it, but burned out on being a fake teacher, fighting with students and dullard teachers for hours on end every day. also the lack of upcoming exhibitions and all the socializing necessary in the art world has me a little bummed out. maybe i just need something to complain about to feel better about myself.
-
the ghetto master taught me a new art. seaturtle throwing style.
-

sheepies