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.
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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.

studio 98% ready for the exhibition.
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almost finished with my installation piece… an oni drawing sculpture that you have to crawl under to view. im fairly satisfied with the outcome. my original plan of backlighting the image turned out to be a problem so i ended up lighting it from the sides using thin japanese paper to diffuse the light. ill post images once the exhibition starts.
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tomorrow no more studio anything. im have done very little vacationing on my vacation.
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picture: watermelon in my garden. we killed almost every other plant, but the watermelon somehow survived.

started the oni castle on the mountain using low-fire tera cotta clay. everyone made little oni figures to place around it… now, if it would just stop raining for a couple of days it just might dry enough so as to not explode in the fire next week.
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havent made much progress with the mikoshi but ive got the plans for my oni drawing installation sketched out.. aichan, fuyuko and i brainstormed for about an hour, then made a little model. this is something ive wanted to make for a long time and ill be able to build the basic structure in less than a day. very excited.
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neba, a potter friend of mine, came over the other day and showed us some raku bowls he had just made that afternoon…
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on august 1st and 2nd he’ll be back in onishi to fire a giant oni sculpture for the ONi TEN exhibition. we might also start building a mikoshi or portable shrine for the opening party.
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The spring 2009 firing at John Dix’s kiln in sasayama rocked, a week I’ll never forget. John had great results with several of the hikidashi pots he pulled from the kiln. The basket I’ve named “monster” blew us all away. (john doesn’t agree with the name) The other pots haven’t come out yet so check his site for updates on shows and images from the firing at johndix.com.


John’s new “assistant”, an offshore welder with a little time on his hands, John Flemming has been working with John Dix for the last year. He also agreed to be there for the entire firing. So the three of us worked as the main team, working around the clock for 6 days. We did have a lot of help- we couldn’t have done it without aly, amy, shiro, morita and johathan- but there is no substitute for taking part through the whole process. During that time we all depend on one another and you form one of those deep bonds with everyone, like old friends from high school. You work for days on end together in extreme temperatures–its freezing outside at night then the kiln is burning the hell out of your hands or its hot outside and your dying in layers of protective clothes. During the fire you’re sleeping occasionally at best, less and less as the week goes on, and it takes every bit of your endurance to get the kiln up those last 50 or so degrees. In the struggle towards the end of the firing you’re second-guessing everything you do and several hours of work to gain a few degrees can easily turn into a 100 degree drop in a matter of minutes. It may sound corny but when firing a wood kiln you deal with one of the first technologies of man, a necessary step to build a society. The incredibly simple elements of fire and earth push you to your limits and exaggerate all your strengths and expose your weaknesses. If you fail to devote yourself completely to the task at hand and work together as a team the kiln will just not produce good pots.

Now, I’ve ridden my bicycle for hundreds of kilometers through snow-covered mountains at night- unable to stop for fear of freezing to death and I’ve ridden through typhoons with rain cutting into my face for hours. Getting through those challenges you have this wave that rushes over you at the end, this tremendous feeling of accomplishment and understanding of what your mind and body are capable of. But getting over those obstacles doesn’t compare to the emotional rush you get when those last cones go over and you finally finish sealing off the kiln. That last night the experience lingers in your body, even with closed eyes those boiling flames still rush across in vivid color and the heat from the fire warms your face. A wood firing requires you to dive head on into this intensity; cut off from the world and to focus your entire energy on one task. If you push yourself to take on this challenge and somehow manage to succeed, you come away a changed person with a knowledge of personal strength and the human struggle to create that will never leave you.

the weather couldnt have been better today. i headed out on my mountain bike looking for some more ridable trails in the area and came across a network of pretty good courses on the mountain range next to my house, called Sakura Yama. its hard to find trails in japan where you dont have to walk you bicycle,but this place has promise. at the top of the mountain the trails just kept splitting and crossing over one another so there has to be something in that maze. too much too explore in one day. Also, since the top was just fire roads, most motor vehicles cant make it over the mountain pass. so there is zero- absolutely no – thru traffic up there even on the paved roads. i know most mtn bikers hate fire roads but its still about a billion times better than city riding. ill take it for next door.

as for the map of the course; im just going to take a photo from a real map next time… google earth seems like a great program on the surface but when you really need detailed information about an area its faults really start to stand out. the program makes it almost impossible to figure out where anything is unless you zoom all the way in. and for some reason none of the streets want to line up if you try to combine images. anyway im not going to use it again for cycling courses.

went for a walk in the mountains between Chichibu and Onishi today. Found a couple tiny caves occupied by mountain gods.

i know the site is all messed up still. There are a few points on the home page I cant figure out myself and need mr. kuehnle to tell me what i did wrong. so it will take a few more days till i get it all straightened out.

in the meantime I have been doing substitute work this week at a school about 25 km (15 miles) across a small mountain range in the town of Chichibu. I thought I’d post an image of the course since I’ve been doing it on my bicycle and have really enjoyed the trips. leaving at 6:30 in the morning the mountains have very little traffic. you almost couldnt ask for a more ideal cycling situation. now, im not a bike nazi or anything but i cant help but feel somewhat hostile towards even the occasional motor vehicle. city cycling just sucks, so I was excited knowing this job would take me out further into the country and give me an excuse to ride more. i cant think of any other way i’d like to start the day, and some obnoxious pile of steel and plastic couldnt be more out of place. i know 99% of car occupants think i must me miserable or out of my mind when they pass me going uphill but i think if people would just try it, they’d get addicted to it as well. people’s bodies adapt to whatever situation you put it in, and after a little regular riding you can go up just about any hill and it actually feels good.

i guess the thing that bothers me most about the car is that people just use it as a default for everything when you really dont need one most of the time. not only is it more expensive to drive, it often takes more time.

anyway, getting to the mountain commute, i dont know the best way to post a map- the japanese maps on google arent very good. so i took a screen shot from google earth which looks a little better even if none of the roads are labeled.
if you are interested, click here for the google maps link

onishi to chichibu cycling road

back from tokyo. great trip. made the rounds to a number of gallery shows and museums.

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for my upcoming exhibition I  met with the owner of Contrasto Galleria,  Mr. Kashibwabuchi.   we set aside a general date of May for the show. I havent decided what works to include yet.  whatever I decide on it will be a pain to frame everything with the small working area available here.  i dont care if i dont have the money, i really want to expand my studio.
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the following sketch is from a BBQ buffet on phuket island in thailand.  while staying there i couldnt get over the very western diet the toursits had.  from muslix and milk in the morning to hamburgers in the afternoon no one seemed interested in trying the amazing food the country has to offer save for those hollowed out coconut drinks you see all over the beaches.  personally, i wouldnt recommend an all-you-can-eat meat diet to someone spending most of their time in a swimsuit.

phuket BBQ buffet

there are many art studios around the tourist areas of thailand. at first i kind of dismissed these since they display fairly dull portraiture, but i went into a few places and found i actually had a lot in common with the owners. most of the people i talked to had works they sold at the front of the store to make ends meet but had their own projects developing on the side. one such artist named Yoi i met on the island of phuket near kata beach.
we ended up hanging out for 3 days and i recommend anyone passing by to look him up. tucked away behind the buddah paintings and tourist portraits he had some works i really liked produced in a bangkok slaughterhouse.