I was fortunate to be selected as a teaching assistant for Tom Spleth’s and Steven Heinemann’s mold making and slip cast workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Isolated on the tip of Deer Isle and overlooking parts of Acadia, Haystack’s gorgeous surroundings made it difficult at times to buckle down in studio. I spent many hours scrambling over the boulders on the rocky coast line, swimming in the crisp ocean water, and admiring the forest trails that were riddled with mosses, ferns, and fungi.

Early in the session I took a lunch time dip and decided I was going to make a large barnacle. I modeled the form with clay using a template to define the size and profile of the foot and textured the piece through a series  of aggressive wire cuts. I cast the model with the undercuts intact, choosing to work them out of the plaster mold with a chisel, a draw blade, and sandpaper. When it was said and done, I had a large drop out mold of a 16 x8″ barnacle with a large tile mold for the foot.

I’ve had the glass bug since spring concentration at Penland and I finally got to scratch that itch. Helen Lee was teaching a beginner’s glass blowing course and her teaching assistants, Alex Rosenberg and Charlotte Potter, were kind enough to take my innocence. I was able to make small cups a couple of nights and Helen blew into my barnacle mold.

We only had time to try the glass barnacle once and although it failed, I learned enough to successfully realize this form in glass back in Star, NC (I’ll post about it soon). Even with its imperfections, the glass barnacle was well-received during the community walk-thru. I also worked with the lab technicians from MIT in the temporary Fab Lab to create a silicone rubber positive of my mold which I shipped home to NC. You can see the barnacle in glass, porcelain, and rubber below.

I also used the Fab Lab to laser-cut templates and create a new flask form. I took a photograph of one of my flasks I made at Penland and using Photoshop I changed the width of the top-view in 10% increments. Rather than making the mold at Haystack, I focused more on the concept and on making a tool to use back home. I can now stack and stagger these templates in infinite ways to generate new forms.

Naturally, Tom Spleth had some projects of his own. You can see him in my video carving layers of plaster blocks to create a mold for slip casting a bowl form. I am happy to say that I am the proud owner of said bowl, having placed the winning bid in the session auction. Tom also made a handsome bottle form. He used the form to demonstrate his technique of painting with colored slips within the mold. These bottle forms and the ax-carved bowls are pictured below. Tom also continued to work on his wood-cut skull prints. He used a ShopBot in the Fab Lab to translate his drawings into a machine-routed printing plates. This is a far cry from the crow bar he used at the start of the series during spring concentration. Observing Tom’s work on this series over the past few months has caused me to evaluate the relation of the hand and the tool, working in series, and the significance of creating marks. I am anxious to see Tom’s limited edition portfolio of skulls.

Although Steven Heinemann studied under Tom, he has come to work in a distinctly different yet complimentary fashion. Rather than model with plaster, Steve tends to model with clay. He also casts earthenware instead of porcelain and is a proponent of high bisque and low glaze. Steve prefers to add drains into his molds where as Tom drain casts by emptying back out of the pour hole. Both Tom and Steve are brilliant in their own right and presented their distinct methods through many informal demos. In fact, the whole workshop seemed smooth and organic. Steve made some drop out bowls and a large gourd-like form. He is also an incredibly good dancer.

I can not mention Haystack without a quick word about its director Stuart Kestenbaum. Professional yet playful, Stuart is a Renaissance man. On the microphone, Stu can work a crowd with chops tighter than most stand up comedians. He opens every slide night with a poem, generally one of his own lyrical gems, which he delivers with a soft spoken eloquence. On the volleyball court, the man is a true force and when he juggles or enthusiastically chucks a frisbee you are reminded that youthfulness is not truly a measure of age so much as it is a quality of spirit.

I also have to mention the Deer Isle 4th of July parade. You can see the “Haystack Makes Waves” entry in the picture below. We came in third place but everyone performed like a champion. In addition to the waves we had hula-hoopers, jugglers, and one Stephen Kent playing nautical-themed songs on bag pipes. I acted as the overly-enthusiastic drum marshal.

Finally, a quick thank you to the other teaching assistants in clay, Austin Smith and Amy Uthus. I t was a pleasure to work with these two artists. I could ramble on about the food, the other classes, the caveman dance party, the new friends and bonfires on the beach but instead I’ll leave you with this picture.

I was able to set up studio at STARworks Ceramics and follow through with the molds I made during spring concentration at Penland.

I helped construct the noborigama kiln in 2008 during a workshop led by Hajimu Kato from Shigaraki Japan and Andres Allik from Talin, Estonia. This was my first time firing it though. Like this blog entry, better late than never.

We did a three day firing in 95 degree heat. It was a little brutal but fun none-the-less. I used a very plastic casting slip that is high in ball clay. The new body responded well to the demands of my amorphous sculptural forms and did not warp in the kiln.

I plan to eventually run some tests to incorporate local clay bodies so that pieces with lighter ash have more interesting surfaces. I’m still having some issues with cracking and I am still considering adding fibers to my slip. For now, the new blend works well enough and I have come to appreciate the quietude of some pieces such as the large amorphous jar below.

Haystack pics soon. Thanks for reading!

All of these flasks feature the Tim Ayers Studio trademark boom box, designed by my good friend Chad Evans and carved into the mold by yours truly. All are lined with a food-safe glaze.

Some are wood-fired:

Some are sleek porcelain:

Otherwise, sorry for the recent blog lapse. I assure you I have been very busy since I wrapped up Spring Concentration at Penland in May. I spent most of June working at STARworks and firing their noborigama. Recently I returned from Maine where I was studio assistant to Tom Spleth and Steven Heinemann at Haystack. I’ll try to update with pics soon, but for now I have some molds to make.

The larger sculpture is a difficult mold to cast as you can see below. With no flat surfaces, the piece wants to collapse on itself. I managed to get 2 out of 8 of these out of the mold but both made it through the bisque. I added nylon fibers to my casting slip towards the end, which seemed to help some but in the future I want to try adding toilet paper instead. Dusting my mold with talc also seemed to help a lot. I became comfortable with the smaller sculpture and was pleased that I could assemble  and cast it without another set of hands, but most of these cracked in the bisque fire. I am going to have to go into my mold and round out a sharp curve where the crack was consistent. Hopefully that will remedy the problem.

You can see a couple of my flasks alongside my green sculptures below. I pour the slip out of my flask molds after only four minutes, so they are very featherweight but sturdy once vitrified. The sculptures sit for a half hour before I empty the liquid slip from the mold so they are considerably thicker but still relatively light for their volume.

During the eighth week, Cristina Cordova’s class transformed the upper clay porch into a juried exhibition space.

Iron had their own show the same evening in Northlight. The forged musical instruments were a big hit amongst those in attendance.

The final Thursday at Penland was the session auction. I pulled my first finished flasks out of the kiln just hours before the auction began. I had hoped to donate my smaller sculpture but it was still cooling in the gas kiln. The flask went for $200 so I was really pleased, especially since I am selling them for only $50 now. I’m glad my modest contribution will go towards a future student scholarship.

My smaller sculpture was finished by show and tell on Friday. Although I rubbed it with manganese and black copper, it all managed to volatilize during the cone 10 reduction firing and came out very white. The larger sculpture on the left only made it to bisque stage during the concentration so I went to work arranging my own personal week 9 in the Penland area.

The Monday after concentration ended I was able to help my friend Courtney Martin fire her wood kiln. You can see potter/blogger extraordinaire Michael Kline was there to lend a neighborly hand as well. This kiln fires like a dream, reaching temp in 15 hours. It was an excellent learning experience for me given that I am used to firing much larger and less efficient wood kilns. All of Courtney’s pots in this load are headed for exhibition in Japan. Congratulations!

Here are a couple of my flasks I squeezed into the kiln load. They are lined with white glaze and bare on the exterior but they flashed in a gorgeous manner. Some of them warped more than I would prefer though so I will cast these thicker for future wood fires, although these do have a nice translucent quality.

I spent the rest of the week with Ross Edwards in his new studio. Ross is a talented young artist out of Richmond that earned his BFA at Alfred. He graciously invited me to cast more flasks, which I had mostly sold or bartered away at Penland.

It was really helpful to spend that extra week with my molds, fine tuning the tops and experimenting with decals and painting slip directly into the molds. The brown decals in the the pic below will turn to gold and platinum luster once they are fired. The others are true to the color and have a sort of nautical feel.

We also successfully glazed my two large sculptures!

Finally, here is a variety of my flasks from that kiln load. I used blue glaze in the trademark boombox image on this run rather than the black stain I had used at Penland. All in all it was a very successful week, and an even more successful concentration.

More soon…

A few weeks ago I began working on the body for a flask design. I carved the models from solid blocks of plaster.

I’ve experimented with different plasters in addition to Pottery 1. Below is my setup for mixing UltraCal, a really dense plaster that requires 20 minutes of agitation for my purposes.

I cast a lot of UltraCal models before transferring and carving my new trademark into the body.

After fussing with a several methods of transferring the image, I settled on newsprint rubbed with iron oxide. Tracing your image with a ball point pen gives a really clean transfer. The image below shows one of  the carved models, which looks really clean in the mold.

The top pieces of my flask molds were pretty tricky, in part due to the cork holder that will be inset into the body. Also, the neck was carved separately and wanted to float and create undercuts, but I worked out the kinks after a couple of failures. I have two flask molds finished and drying now, one with the carved image on the front and the other with the image on the back.

Tom demonstrated his method of painting with slip inside the mold pieces. He does this immediately before pouring, building layers up like print. The slip motifs become really flat, physically a part of the body. I had hoped to transfer images in a similar manner, by screening slip onto newsprint and draping the image into the mold, but I am not sure that I will have time during concentration.

I was lucky enough to witness a fleeting rainbow during dinner a few weeks ago, but life has not been all rainbows. Between an incident with a yellow jack up my shirt and a recent injury, I’ve really been suffering for my art. I’ve also had more than my share of failures.

I managed to hurt myself pretty badly about 10 days ago. I overestimated my strength and had a pallet full of materials get away from me on a steep hill. I was forced to steer the pallet into a low stone wall and flung myself down the hill in the process. You can get an idea of the injury from the picture below, but if you want to follow the full array of color, you’ll have to watch my facebook album. Lesson learned.

Despite my injury I managed to execute a 240 lb plaster pour with the assistance of Phil Sanders. My inner seams were lined with clay and blew out. My negative space filled with plaster. This is my biggest failure, especially in combination with my injury. After consulting with Rick Beck, I have a much clearer idea of where to start with this project. I also realized that I do not have time to complete this kiln cast due to its large mass, but I have a great head start for taking this on in the future. Most importantly, this project really caused me to examine my desire to work with glass. I’ve entertained that possibility since watching hot ladle pours here at Penland in 2007 and I am ready to act on that desire. My summer scholarship for first session with Paul Wandless and Kathy King has now been changed to sixth session with Mark Mitsuda. Instead of image transfer on clay I will be taking an introduction to glass blowing. Hopefully I can  prepare some blow molds ahead of time for that class and work towards that objective. For now I am going to make more time to watch and learn what is going on in Scott Benefield’s class.

While I have been really buckled down in studio I have found some time for relaxation. A couple of weekends ago I met a crew of Raleigh folk in Linville Gorge. I spent one night in a hammock under the stars and managed to drag my battered body from the ridge down to the river and back up.

Dance parties have been rare since my last post but the two we’ve had in the past few weeks really stand out: Cristina Cordova’s birthday party and POLY PROM!

This week marks the end of plaster. I have two large sculptural molds I will begin casting as well as two flask molds. We also have a field trip to the Mint Museum in Charlotte. Hopefully my next entry won’t be put off three weeks Thanks for reading.

Tom Spleth gave a slip cast demo to start the week off. Since everyone in the class is making a wide range of projects, Tom began teaching us how to formulate our slips so that we can all run tests.

The image below is me throwing one of Tom’s models out after he finished his mold. I have to admit there was some hesitation when he asked me to trash it, but as you can tell by my grin I got a kick out of it too. The plaster model has a distinct beauty of its own. Eventually when I own land, I’d like to amass a graveyard of old models and watch them slowly deteriorate  in the woods.

The vase below is one of Tom’s. It literally is as thin as an egg shell. When you lift the piece, it feels like it could soar into the sky. This is very different from his newest series of “Sinkers,” which are cast up to a half inch thick and have a real sense of being grounded.

I finished my 2nd mold this week. I speculated that it would require up to sixteen pieces in my last post, but I manged to do it in only nine parts. Below is an image of all the pieces laid out by the model.

Its a real puzzle to assemble and I definitely need a second pair of hands when assembling it. This mold will be difficult to handle when casting too because of the scale, but I’ve got a strong back.

Matt Provancha, my good buddy and art handler extraordinaire, came up to visit from Asheville and took me for a spin on the Blue Ridge Parkway in his 64 Corvair. Between that cruise and eating lunch outdoors all week, I’m starting to get a pretty sweet farmer’s tan.

Today is Easter and Penland invites the surrounding community to a covered dish lunch and egg hunt every year. Of course a Penland egg hunt is in a league of its own because it uses handmade eggs from the students and instructors. They also host an Easter bonnet contest. My egg was a little uninspired, just a plastic egg dipped in plaster and sanded smooth. I wish I had put a treat inside the plastic egg before coating it. I just imagine a young kid with the conundrum of whether they should break the egg for the prize or preserve the object. Fortunately a lot of folks put more effort into their eggs and I saw a lot of happy egg hunters.

There have been an unusual number of dance parties this week. I held it down with my ghetto blaster beside the Wood studio’s burn barrel Wednesday night after I completed my second mold. I found myself pushed into an interpretive dance with my friend Sarah. You really forget how long Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ is until you commit to a performance. We also did some late night shadow puppetry.<3 Puppetry!

Thursday night a power line caught fire in Spruce Spine and set acres of land on fire. It also knocked Penland’s power out right as dinner was being served. Enter Action Man. I took a fully-charged-ipod-equipped-boombox to the kitchen crew and work study students for their otherwise somber dinner cleanup. While they were cleaning I decided we needed to have a fire on the knoll. I ran it by Neal the nightwatchman, rounded up a truck, and loaded up a more than ample supply of wood. I got everything set up with the assistance of Penland’s gardner, Ryan Cooper, and decided to light the fire after slides started (they rigged it up with a truck battery I think). Unfortunately, we had to call it off at the last minute due to poor burn conditions and the rapidly spreading fire on the next mountain over. We’ll set a time aside for the fire one night soon. With no power on campus, working in the studio was for the most part out of the question so I gave Penland its first true mobile dance party of the session.

Friday night Small Metals had an officially sanctioned dance party. Saturday night Letterpress and Drawing had a pre-party/ gallery hanging before the officially sanctioned dance party in Glass. So yeah, four straight nights of dancing and a band is visiting tonight.

Amongst all of this dancing I have been developing ideas and working out trades. There is an incredibly broad range of skills and thought processes present, so I feel like I am being productive even when cutting loose. This week I am going back into my first mold and making a high silica version of it so that I can make this glass kiln cast happen. I’m also working on a production line of flasks. Right now I plan to make them with a porcelain casting slip stained black. I am going to do one or two color image transfers onto the flasks. I’ve been working on the idea of fetishizing hand tools. Hand tools are made to relate to the body, but often times these tools reflect human anatomy as well. I am going to work off diagrams of tools and translate them with my hand, then lay them over images of the human body. I am really excited about this line of work and believe these will be a hot trunk item on my summer tour of craft schools. I’m also working with my buddy Chad Evans in Raleigh to come up with a watermark to use on business cards. Danielle Stevens, the studio assistant for small metals, is going to make the mark into a silver knuckle ring so that I can stamp each flask like a king. The initial design concept is a boom box with a T and A in the speakers. Aside from being my initials, it lends itself well to an already suggestive project.

Ok, off to swim in the Toe River!

Phil Sanders, pictured below, is teaching a mixed media class about a printmaking approach to painting and drawing. I watched his paper mache demo early in the week because it could be a useful way to make models for future slip cast projects. Phil is collaborating with Tom Spleth on a book of 50 wood block prints of skulls. He has also been spending a lot of late nights in our studio attempting to realize a specific form. I am going to make the effort to catch up with him next time I visit New York where  he is the director and master printer of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.

As far as my current projects, I completed my first mold. I managed to do it in 5 pieces plus a stand and an additional large tile mold. I’ll cast the object like a bowl and cast the tile at the same time so that I can flip the sculpture onto the tile and trim the foot to fit. I’ll also trim a bevel into the foot so that the piece is not so grounded. It has a lot of energy and needs that slight lift.

Below is a pic looking down into the mold. I anticipate a few failed casts and a fair amount of mold refinement before I actually realize this form in clay. We have a casting demo tomorrow, so I may attempt that sooner than later or I may continue with my second mold.

This is the large tile mold I made to use as a foot for my first project.

As I worked on my first mold I started to see the form as a glass object. I’ve been talking to the glass instructor, assistants, residents, and the EnergyXchange crew about making this happen. Originally I was considering a plaster blow mold, which is how the torso was made in the pic below. After seeing the process and taking more of the technical issues into consideration I am leaning towards making it by kiln casting. While less exciting, I could capture a lot more detail. Essentially it involves making a one time use mold made of refractory plaster, filling in glass, and bringing it all up to temp in a kiln. Because the mold is going to be ruined in the process you can preserve a lot of the undercuts by carefully chipping the plaster away once it has cooled.

I’ve begun work on a second mold now as well. I started piecing together different models from my second troweled form series. Some matched up surprisingly well while others I began to examine as offset pairs. I really like the idea of these tectonic shifts but for the time being I have decided to marry two forms. I may return to the tectonic idea in the future, but for now it opened a whole new set of technical and conceptual hurdles that I feel should wait.

The two models below were the best fit. The way the dominant curve of both pieces lined up is remarkable. I’m not so sure that the alignment would fit so well even if I had had the intention of marrying the two from the start, but I am open to good luck. I think it is fitting considering the phenomenological quality of this series.

I carefully drilled the two models and lag bolted them together. Where the pieces did not match I added dry wall screws and frosted additional plaster to join the two. At first it looked a little contrived but I worked on the new areas with a Dremel, some carving tools, wire brushes, and sandpaper and I feel really good about the model now. A lot of the motivation in making this complicated mold is to create an object that has no top or bottom, no front or back. In a sense it represents my interior space lately, trying to move and go in many directions.

This new piece could potentially be up to 16 parts although I have four large segments marked out to begin. When I first joined the two models I just had to walk away from the form. Its an intimidating project for a novice mold maker but I am just stubborn enough to pull it off. I am growing increasingly confident in my ability and developing my own techniques, such as my Tim Ayers patented plaster trough seen below. By adding a small spout below my trim line I keep my mess minimal and am able to capture and reuse poured plaster before it sets. Waste not, want not. Tom said we’ll probably always do things differently. I replied that at least we won’t get bored with each other.

This final pic is of Tom Spleth working on his mold with the help of the other studio assistant, the fabulous Lauren Owens. Lauren recently earned her bachelors of art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has assisted Tom for two other workshops. She has a relaxed attitude and is a keen mold maker. Its been really great seeing how she helps everyone in the class solve their technical problems.

I’ve been watching how Lauren interacts with the class especially close because I found out this week that I have been selected as the studio assistant for Tom Spleth’s and Steven Heinemann’s class at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts later this summer. Needless to say I am really excited about my first trip to this renown institution. My close friend Niki Coverstone, who I met here in 2007 and is here for concentration as well, is also attending third session at Haystack. ROAD TRIP! I’ll have two weeks following the first summer session at Penland to get to Maine and we are going to make the most of that time by visiting friends along the way. The only downside is I am going to have to turn down the work-study scholarship Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts has offered but hopefully I will have a future opportunity to attend. I also mailed my application for the summer assistant program at Peters Valley Craft Center this week. If that works out I could potentially head from Haystack to upstate Jersey and help conduct workshops through mid-September. I’m not one to count my chickens before they hatch though so I am keeping my ear out for other opportunities. Alright, thanks for reading! I need to get cracking on my second mold piece of my new project and I am getting a late start after Ross Edward’s and Micah Cain’s killer dance party last night!

We dove right in with a demo late Sunday night to kick off the class. Tom Spleth spoke very forthright about his life experiences while demonstrating, instantly gaining the students’ trust through his transparency. The next day we sat around as a class and discussed the objects that he asked us to bring to class. These objects were meant to reflect an aspect of our work while not being the work itself. My object is a golf ball covered in barnacles since a lot of my work is concerned with the relation of man-made objects with nature. One of the reasons I signed on for mold making and slip cast is that I want to further explore the relationship of industry and the natural world. Tom used the object discussion to get a feel for each student’s aim and quickly was able to guide us towards very different projects. I am eager to see the wide range of work at the end of the session.

I began with a series of plaster models. Using Tom’s technique of pouring a puddle of plaster onto the floor, I troweled the forms up while the plaster was still in an additive phase. Eventually the plaster will no longer adhere to itself at which point I began the subtractive phase using scrapers and rasps. This was a good exercise to familiarize myself with plaster as a new material. I may return to these forms and refine them but for now I have moved onto something much more complex.

My second series consists of ten models that I also trowel formed. The big difference here being that I have abandoned the subtractive phase. The most difficult part of this series is knowing when to stop. The model above to the right is overworked in my opinion, removing the life of the material on the back portion. Tom said not to throw anything out yet and I may go back to refine the overworked molds by carving in clean geometric shapes to give the piece a strong point of contrast.

This is a pic of where I have been working on the floor. So far I have used 200 lbs of dry plaster to create the two series of work. The process is really athletic as you work with a material that is time sensitive and extremely dynamic. Tom works on the floor so that he can move around the piece better and also because of his love for watching contemporary dance, specifically the American Dance Festival in Durham which I attended for the first time this past year. He sees similarities in contemporary dance and his process because of the relation of the artist to the floor. As I progressed with my series I kept that in mind, working each piece with a specific rhythm and set of motions. I also focused on the relation of the tool to the hand and began working with two different trowels at once for the last few models. I am really happy with the process and some of my results thus far. The forms are a stark contrast to my past work, very sensuous in comparison to my Tower series.

Above is a pic of my set up for my very first mold piece. You may notice there are no cottles. Tom is teaching us to make molds in a similar fashion to the way he makes forms, troweling and shaping the plaster as it sets. It is truly amazing that in one week’s time he has helped to eliminate all of my anxieties surrounding plaster as a material. To be perfectly honest, blocking the clay up around this form felt dirty after being so immersed with silky smooth plaster.

So my first mold piece was successful. I did fail to trim the plaster back to my blocking clay so I had some extra refinement to do once I removed the mold, but I managed to correct it in my brief studio time Saturday night. Judging by the complexity of my model, I still have 5-9 more molds to make in order to transform this shape into a clay object.

Yesterday I took Saturday off of studio to go help Michael Kline glaze and wad pots for his firing. Poor fella was up until 5 am decorating pots but he was up and ready for me at 9 am. I jokingly told him that he decorates about like David Stuempfle and I wood-fire. It was a beautiful day to work outdoors and Michael was kind enough to show me some superb glazing techniques. I’ve been making atmospheric wood-fired pots since 2003 and truthfully, this was my first time really glazing pots other than the half-hazard dunking that all beginning potters fall prey to. EnergyXchange residents Micah Cain and Lindsay Rogers both popped by with a few pots and to lend a hand. Also, kudos to Michael Kline for his excellent taste in music. Its good to see someone his age reading Pitchfork and embracing new tech such as Twitter. I certainly hope that I can stay as up to date as I mature.

Here is a shot of the instructor gallery. I’m looking forward to dropping in other studios’ demos, particularly the print class with Phil Sanders and Cristina Cordova’s figure sculpture class in upper clay. I’ve also been talking to some of the glass students about making a blow mold of my piece so that I could potentially tap into my first experience with glass sculpture.

Finally, a few loose but critical ends. I had the opportunity to give the first slide talk of concentration last Tuesday before Tom did his slide talk/ surprise demo. I am still being flattered on a daily basis by students, instructors, and residents who were impressed by my work, which is very encouraging. Also, I was notified this past week that I am the recipient of the Collins, Evans, Massey Scholarship for Summer Session 1 with Paul Wandless and Kathy King. It is a special work-study scholarship, which means I’ll have a work-study position in exchange for full tuition, room, and board. While I’ve been entirely focused on form thus far, I need to jar the image portion of my mind and start thinking of what I want to say and how to incorporate the images into a new body of work.

Congratulations on making it to the  end of my longest blog post yet. I am not on the internet daily which is a huge shift for me but a welcome change. Still, be sure to check my twitter @TimAyersUS for daily pics of delicious meals from the Pines. I feel so spoiled by the food that I am compelled to share these pics with you. For shits and giggles I’m also trying to eat beets at least once if not twice a day. Believe it or not, I left a lot out of this post including some videos I am taking of demos and of me working that are just too large for me to worry with right now. I’ll try to post again soon, but I may try to just do these week in review posts so that I can concentrate on what I am working on and use the blog as a sort of journal to reflect on each week. Thanks for reading!

Below are four pictures of David Stuempfle’s new anagama, which is perpendicular to his older one. Our friend and master kiln builder Andres Allik came from Talin, Estonia to help David build the kiln. I regret that I missed seeing him during this recent visit. I met Andres a few years back when he assisted with building the Shigarki style noborigama designed by Japanese potter Hajimu Kato at STARworks Ceramics in Star, NC. I’ve never seen any mason as quick and precise Andres.

David’s new kiln is about 30′ long, but the taper and stepped up interior should make filling it more manageable than the old kiln. There should be a better flame pattern too since there will less empty space along the arch.

The biggest pots will be behind the grate in the middle, which theoretically can be used to increase air flow to the middle and back of the kiln for temperature gain or too burn down ember piles.

Note the mouse holes between the side stoking ports. These can also be used to increase air flow. A lot of my favorite wood-fired pots have a layered ash effect from building up embers and burning them down multiple times. Ideally these will help streamline that process.

In the picture above you can see that David’s already huge kiln shed has been augmented by Tony Luck and his crew.

Team Tony also did a beautiful job on Takuro and Hitomi Shibata’s new kiln shed pictured below. Takuro and Hitomi moved to Seagrove in 2005 from Shigaraki, Japan. Takuro runs STARworks Ceramics, a non-profit organization created by Central Park NC. Aside from having an array of materials available for the surrounding pottery community, STARworks Ceramics also processes local clay bodies through a series of refurbished industrial machines. Recently Hitomi has been conducting workshops in the studio space adjacent to the supply room.

The new kiln is located at their house on Busbee Rd neighboring Ben Owen III and Chris Luther. Takuro and Hitomi have a done a great job documenting their building process on their Studio Touya blog.

There is a nice sized anagama chamber in the front followed by a large chamber and a secret chamber. In order to meet a deadline they have already fired the second chamber with some nice results. I’m sure they are eager to finish and fill the entire kiln now. It should be noted that this kiln was also blessed with the sweat of a certain Estonian. I’m confident that Takuro and Hitomi have many successful firings to come.