Written by Ian Buchanan – TLC Student

Loading the kiln starts. Wadding all the pieces to stop them sticking to the shelves and each other.

Most trips, for me have usually started off over a few wines and a lot of talking. This one was no different. It got underway because Mike and I have been building a wood-fired kiln for the last couple of years and it is very close to being finished.

Janet Smith dropped in during one of these sessions and suggested organising a trip to Australia to visit a couple of their anagama style potters, Janet Mansfield and Chester Nealie. The idea was to get a bit of first hand experience and knowledge concerning anagama style firing techniques.

Janet Mansfield is a world class potter and author of two ceramics magazines. Chester Nealie is a Kiwi now resident in Australia and is internationally recognised for his ceramics and anagama work. A few phone calls and we were invited to stay at Janet Mansfield’s place and help load and fire one of her kilns. Awesome!

Six of us headed off for ten days with a pretty open itinerary apart from air travel bookings. We hired a car in Sydney, loaded up in the dark and rain, set the navigation GPS that Janet S had brought with her and headed off. I would definitely recommend these things to everyone. It got us there and back no problem!

Janet M lives about 4 hours out of Sydney on the other side of the Blue Mountains, not far from Gulgong. The property is a large working farm set in a pretty dry environment, they can go for years without rain and the place is pretty dry at the moment. She has a great setup with 6 kilns ranging from large trolley kilns, Burrie box and Anagama style kilns, plus all the associated outbuildings for potting, storage, living and outdoor eating.

The first night Chester gave us a demo on tumble stacking techniques and firing for effect. This means attempting to plan the flame and ash path through the kiln so that the ash gets drawn amongst the work and is glazed onto the pots. Anagama firing is pretty random but with a bit of planning some great looking effects can happen.

We took over some bisque fired work each for the firing and added it to work by students from Canberra uni, two other local potters firing work for an upcoming exhibition and another student with 7th form HSC work.

We lit the kiln at 2.30 pm and planned to fire it for 40 hours straight. We paired up and did 6 hour shifts on the firebox, slowly lifting the temperature over 600c then a bit quicker until we had reached cone 11, which is over 1320 c!. The whole kiln is nearly glowing with flames shooting out the top of the chimney continuously. Very spectacular to watch. Small branches and kindling is put directly into the back of the kiln amongst the pots through side stoking ports built into the kiln during the firing, they catch fire instantly and their ash is carried over the adjacent pots by the fierce flame draft, creating additional glazes and colours. The type of wood used in the firing also has a big effect on the finished work. Cyprus seemed to be a favourite for colour with Iron Bark and Gum for heat, and fruit tree pruning also for different minerals and colours.

We then sealed the kiln up and let it slowly cool for 2 days before gradually opening the front vents up and letting a bit of cool air in. It still took another day before we could get inside and get work out.

While the kiln was cooling we spent some time with Chester at his place doing workshops on cleaning pots post firing and spending time looking at his kilns and workshop. He has two working anagama style kilns, one a fast fire and the other a slower model, even the fast fire model still takes 24 hours of constant stoking. Longer firings with larger kilns such as at Janet’s place could take up to 10 days!

We got to see how he builds his pots up and prepares his slab work for platters etc, lots of advice on clay bodies and glazes suitable for wood firing. Building kilns to fire your own work seems to be part of the whole creative process surrounding anagama style pottery. Both Chester and Janet M have built kilns themselves to try and produce pottery with a style that was peculiar to them. They are more than happy to dismantle and rebuild if things don’t turn out how they want them.

One of the real draw cards for the local area is the availability of local clay , wide open spaces and tons of firewood for free, all essential ingredients I think.

After the kiln had cooled enough to let us inside we unloaded our work. We still had to have planks on the floor to stop the soles of our shoes melting and we needed gloves to handle the pots. A couple of shelves had collapsed and some of the work was welded together with ash glaze but apart from that things looked great. There was a big difference of finishes on the pots depending on where the items were in the kiln so that was interesting to see.

We spent the rest of the time preparing clay and throwing 100 dinner bowls for guests at an international conference they are holding there next year. They will be fired in the anagama kiln and used at meal times during the event. Very cool.

All up it was a great trip with nice people and I personally got heaps out of it. Nice to be with a group of people who so willingly give up hard won experience and knowledge. Very inspiring.

We all managed to get some work home unbroken and managed to get around the wineries and great countryside with plenty of laughs thrown in while we were there. We even brought some wine home to start planning the next trip with.

3 shelves high and starting to stack forward towards the open firebox.

Full blast, flames from every opening.

Breakfast time. Outdoor living is easy in this climate.