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The firing was another great learning experience and a success!

The students are fabulous at problem solving.  Alexandra took her knowledge of wood burning stoves to set up a schedule for the second team to mix the oak and the scrap wood for optimum heat and then for the third team, Monique designed a sandwich of a layer of poplar or pine, then oak, and then a layer of poplar and pine again.  The temperature rose nicely but stalled and then we used only a mixture of poplar and pine to finish the firing.  Ms Zhang cannot wait to open the kiln; she noticed all the beautiful colours in the ember bed.  And once again we are all grateful to Keith and his table saw and Matt for bringing batteries that worked for the Oxyprobe.  All of the students showed up and the first entry in the log book showed that the temperature today was warmer than when we fired in October.  The wind wasn’t a problem either.  The only nuisance was the damp.

Wool really helped!  There was food and laughter and well…did I say blessed?  We will open the kiln together on Friday but it is hard to wait.  Oh, and leave it to Monique – she decided to burn an entire pallet!

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Loaded! And Ready to go…

The students in the wood fire class at the School of Art fired their first kiln load a month ago.  It was so cold that day and the wind just whipped through our coats right to the bone with a sharp chill.  It is hard to believe but it will actually be warmer in Winnipeg tomorrow when this kiln is fired.  How many times have I said that we are blessed?

The students did a great job.  Julia cleared the entire kiln courtyard of snow before Monique and Kendra started loading.  Jiawei, Kewan, and Hyounjung helped to sort all of the work and everyone pitched in wadding work if it needed it.  We loaded the kiln keeping in mind that The Laidback Wood Fire book by my friend Steve Harrison says to place the bag wall in the front.  Markus Bohm puts it at the back and in the end Steve has abandoned a bag wall altogether and gone with a tight stack in the middle.  Ours is a combination of all of those.  Pots were placed in the extended throat to slow and move the flames about.  Kewan’s arches are helping to keep the flames contained on the floor at the back and on the first shelf.  We listened and did not load the top as tight as we did before and there is room all around for the flames to travel.  Fingers crossed.  These students have worked hard and learned a lot – although I doubt if they fully comprehend all that they have learned yet.  Sara, Anastasia, and Alexandra put the finishing touches on bricking up the door.  It all starts in the wee hours of the morning when Sara does the gas pre-heat.  Stay posted…firing pictures to follow on Sunday.  We unload the kiln on Friday with high hopes.

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Chaeban is much more than delicious handmade ice cream….

Today it isn’t about the lovely plates that Terry Hildebrand makes but what is on them.  It was damp and grey in Winnipeg, -4 or so.  One of those days when you feel a little colder close to the bone than the temperature outside would make you think.  In fact, it reminded me of when we moved to England so I could do my PhD.  We almost came back to Canada!  You simply could not get warm.  But…I had promised a long time friend that we would go for ice cream and the day we decided on, weeks ago, was today.  I can hear the moans already … what was she thinking?  Ice cream in Winnipeg in November!  But you see, die-hard ice cream fans can enjoy Chaeban any day of the week unless you are watching the calories, which I am, so this treat is once every several months.

But today we were in for a surprise.  There sitting next to the brand new coffee machines was a small tray of handmade sweets.  The baklava, if you look close, is bursting with nuts but it is the other date coconut and pistachio roll that takes the word ‘treat’ to a whole different level.  The flavours are fresh and what could have been overpowered by the strong flavour of dates, wasn’t.  They complimented the coconut perfectly.  The pistachios were held together ever so slightly with what I think is local honey…again, not too sweet.

So, if you aren’t in the mood for ice cream but you are looking for a beautiful spot to have coffee with a friend and a sweet treat, check out Chaeban.  They are located at 690 S Osborne in Winnipeg.  If you try the date coconut roll and like it as much as I did, tell them – and then smile and tell someone else. As a neighborhood, we are so happy to have Chaeban with us.

And next week, I plan to check out another new hangout just down the street, the new coffee shop at the corner of Morley and Osborne in the old BMO building.  There are people drinking coffee and working on their laptops in the morning and even more in the evening.  Looks inviting.

It also looks like there will be two other shops opening up soon…well done, South Osborne.  And no…I didn’t get paid to say these things…but I will be going back for more date, coconut and pistachio rolls…yummy.

Afternoon tea with Destiny, Gunda, Terry, and Harlan

I am not actually having afternoon tea with Destiny, Gunda, Terry, and Harlan but, oh, how nice that would be!  But they are here with me regardless.  Harlan House’s Row House candle holder is always somewhere easily in sight.  Oh, what a nice man Harlan is.  He stopped having his annual open houses a couple of years ago but he still takes calls from collectors and clients and hasn’t stopped working.  He just wants to set his own schedule and after more than 50 years of working with porcelain surely he has earned it.  Harlan has also left another legacy.  He spent the past couple of years working on a digital book.  You can find it on his website – just search Google or ask Siri.  Last week he said that I knew everything that was in it but he hoped it would help my students.  And, indeed, it will just like the videos that he has inserted in his site have helped them to understand the great amount of effort that one has to put into trimming if they want to work with porcelain.  Most are too much of a hurry to allow the porcelain to cure as it dries.  For those of you who read my article on Harlan in Art and Perception you will know this story but, for those of you that don’t, it is a good way to remember to take care with your work.  You can have a giggle, too.  Harlan built a room within his carriage house studio to dry his porcelain.  He put regular household bricks on the floor and there were windows and those baby humidifiers from the 1970s shooting out their warm mist.  His thrown pieces were on shelves where he could see them through the windows.  He said, “These platters are kind of like a love affair.  At first, everything is perfect.  Then about two weeks in you start to notice little things begin to happen” – an upturn of the lip -.  He would remove the pieces, place them back on the wheel and return them to dry.  I never did find out how many trips those large thrown platters made in and out.  By the time they made it to the gallery they were exceptional. but

Gunda is never far away but, this weekend she is firing her wood kiln in Canyon, BC getting ready for the last big market of the year.  Her temmokus are luscious – I do repeat that often.  They break at the rim and over the finger marks into a gorgeous kaki.  Someone told me once that she could “just fire them in a gas kiln”.  Of course, she could but then she would not be part of the complete process.  She often makes her own clays and mixes her own glazes.  She is part of every aspect of the firing and my back breaks when I think of her climbing in and out of her Manibigama kiln with the heavy silicon carbide shelves.  But, if she put everything in the gas kiln it would lose that subtle softness that only comes with wood firing.  Gunda is the only studio potter I know of that makes her teapots so that you can actually fit, with ease, one of those large strainers in the top opening.  I thank her every time I want to make a full pot…and she is with me in spirit every day otherwise I would find myself travelling to BC far too often.

This is what I mean when I talk about the joy that quality handmade items make to your life.  I am not talking about the “crap” out there and the word “craft” still gets a bad name from people who purchase bags of parts of things and assemble them together and call themselves an artist.  It takes a long time of study and the mastery of the material to be someone whose work won’t make it into the garage sale in five years time.  Terry Hildebrand is young.  I wrote about my favourite plates of his yesterday.  Today one of them is holding the offering of lemon and rosemary scones to my guest while Destiny Seymour’s textile ties the whole lot of these lovely people together.

We have a very close friend, Ruby, who is a Cree Medicine Woman.  She deals with the dead.  But she has imparted a lot of wisdom to me over the years (thank you, Ruby).  One thing that I learned is to only surround yourself with the work of “good” people.  Remove the objects made by those who carry negative energy.  The world is full of it, why bring that into your house?  How lucky am I then to be having Saturday afternoon tea with such a remarkable, creative group of good and kind people?  Think about that when you are shopping, too and support these wonderful makers who have chosen to live a creative life.

Well, my goodness

My students and I prepared for the worst.  But look at the faces of Sara (left) and Monique (right).  It wasn’t all bad.  No cones down, Oxyprobe reading said that we were only at about cone 3 and, of course, no real view into that wood kiln when we ran out of wood.  We were disappointed but at every turn, there was something to be learned.  Today, as a few of us unloaded the kiln, there was confirmation that the shelves were too close to the back wall.  Next time, they will be 10 cm away!  But, of course, we need wood.  Manitoba surely isn’t known for its abundant forests.  Too bad.  Several are searching to try and help us.  So, what we need are logs, no bigger in diameter than 15 cm but at least 1 metre long or able to be cut to 1 metre.  And they need to be dry.  But…for the disappointment, there was also some joy.  Some of the pieces did get some lovely ash and some of the glazes did mature.  Have a look!

 

 

Third European Wood Fire Conference in La Borne, France, continued

La Borne has been home to potters since, at least, the beginning of the 17th century.   The oak forests around the village were planted to provide wood to build the navy vessels for King Louis XIV’s fleet.  Today they supply the potters and their kilns and are carefully managed.  For the most part, the potters use the wood found on the floor of the forest and that from the ‘thinning’ management.  One informative talk during the conference was precisely on the history of the forest and its management, something that is not a normal topic in Manitoba because we have so little available wood in comparison.  Indeed, one of the reasons for building the new Bourry Box kiln is to be able to continue wood firing at the School but also, to conserve the amount of wood used in these firings.

The shape and type of kilns built in La Borne has evolved with economic and social changes in the country.  The early, extremely colossal kilns, often known as ‘whale kilns’, were used to fire storage jars for transporting and storing food.  In the 20th century, demands by the local farms for pottery slowly declined because of new manufactured products that served the same purpose but were cheaper to purchase.  After World War II, there was a shift in the type of work made in the village.  Up until this time, the pottery production in La Borne was entirely for domestic uses related to the storage, cooking, and serving of food and drink. After, there is the arrival of the first individuals trained in art school, many of whom worked in creating clay sculpture.  Jacqueline and Jean Lerat were two such ceramic artists.  Their son gave a superb talk about their work and the change in the type of production in La Borne at this time.

Today, the kilns in La Borne are much smaller, suitable for the production of one or two persons.  They range from the Sevres style with a  one cubic metre ware chamber that belong to Atelier Dominique Gare-Roz Herrin and the same style of kiln to Jean and Claud Guillaume.  Dominique Gare has  a six cubic metre noborigama while Svein Hjort Jensen fires a three cubic metre anagama.  Included with the Bourry Box styles and the Asian kiln types are also a number of kilns based on the designs of Fred Olsen.  Sylvie Rigal has a one cubic metre train kiln while Dominique Legros fires a 300 litre Four Dragon kiln.  At the end of October, these kilns will be lit, most at the same time, for the firing festival known as ‘La Borne senflamme’.  It has been an annual event since the 17th century.  This event and the Third European Wood Fire Conference has brought many outsiders to this picturesque village, some 40 minutes from Bourges.  It is hoped that the village and its potters continue to prosper in the centuries to come.  If it is, there needs to be a way to bring more youth to the village to establish their own studios. Indeed, there were many young people who attended the conference so there is hope!

I am grateful to all the members of the Association Ceramique La Borne for all of the events they organized.  It was difficult to decide which talk or workshop to take from the descriptions on line.  This was so unfortunate.  But, like everywhere else, choices had to be made.  The conference took advantage of local resources and the beauty of the Loire Valley.  There was an excursion to the Decorative Arts Museum and St Etienne in Bourges on Thursday and tomorrow there is a trip to Sancrette.  Of course, having time to catch up with acquaintances that you haven’t seen for four years or meeting new friends and having discussions in between the formal events really is what these events are about.

And a correction.  There are three countries interested in hosting the Fourth European Wood Fire Conference.  They are Latvia, Belgium, and Spain (Barcelona).  It had been anticipated that the next host would be announced today but, each of the venues has asked for more time to consider their resources in relation to the hundred attendees (the average of the paying guests during the first three conferences).

 

 

Third European Wood Fire Conference, continued

Today was officially day 4 of the Third European Wood Fire Conference in LeBorne, France.  It is just such a magical place.  To reach LeBorne from Bourges, about a 40 minute drive using winding country roads, you pass through corn and sunflower fields.  As you get closer, you enter the forests that have supplied the potters in the area with wood for centuries.  Indeed, several Roman-Gallo kilns have been unearthed and the conference has recreated two of these for the participants to see how they were constructed.  My very good friend, Dr Julia Nema from Budapest, spoke to the influences of Malevich and Moholgy-Nagy on her light sculptures while Fred Olsen provided everyone with a reason to use cartable for building a wood kiln instead of bricks.  Other events included a round table discussion on the future of wood firing, tours to two local museums, and, of course, the numerous open studios of the potters living and working in LeBorne. You do not have to look far to find pottery sitting in gardens, on shelves of buildings or gracing gardens.  The anagama kiln will be finished firing tomorrow and if the rain would stop we might actually see the bottle kiln finished!

The first conference was held in Brollin and my friend, Markus Boehm, who came to build the Bourry Box kiln for the School in June, headed up that committee.  Priscilla Mouritzen was part of the team that hosted the second conference at the International Ceramic Research Centre in Skaelskor, Germany.  At that time only Denmark was wanting to host the second one.  It appears that was the case with the third being in LeBorne but, the events are so successful that this time there are four centres vying for the fourth conference in 2022.  It reminds me now of the Olympics.  But, I keep asking:  who decides who will be the host?  Since this has not been a problem previously, no one seems to be able to answer.  The short list contenders are:  Russia, Latvia, Barcelona, and Belgium.  Everyone will find out Friday morning!

Meanwhile, I am staring at a stack of catalogues and books that I would never be able to readily find in Canada or on Amazon – as well as some pottery – and trying to figure out how I am going to get this back to Canada next week.  The local potters would have sold much more to ‘the foreigners’ if someone had the foresight to have a ‘for charge’ packing and mailing business locally for this event.

The Art of Woodfire: A Contemporary Practice

As I began to prepare for my talk on the marginalization of women within the wood fire community (or women ceramists in general) at LaBorne in a few weeks, I took the opportunity to do what was done earlier with art history survey texts:  I started to examine the inclusion of women in publications on the subject.

In 2011, Mansfield Press, owned by the late Janet Mansfield (herself an internationally respected woman who fired her work with wood), published Owen Rye’s The Art of Woodfire:  A Contemporary Practice.  The book has a statement from Rye on why he is so passionate about wood firing in addition to a discussion on the aesthetics, history, and materials and processes of this very physical method of working with clay.  There are pages devoted to individual artists alongside beautiful (and large) images of their work and kilns.  Most discuss their choice of wood firing over other methods or what inspires them.  My objective was a little different.

The book was written in response to to an exhibition which was held at the Front Room Gallery in Gulgong, NSW, eventually travelling to all of Australia in 2011.  But it is much more than a catalogue and the discussions could be applied to the concerns within the wood firing community internationally.  Rye included a discussion of the 24 artists within the exhibition.  Of these the women represented include the late Janet Mansfield, Sandy Lockwood, Barbara Campbell-Allen (including a large photo of her anagama kiln in Kurrajong, NSW opposite an image of a vase and a bottle), and Carol Rosser.  Mention was made of others including Gwyn Hanssen Pigott and Moraig McKenna whose lovely wood fire porcelain was featured in two photographs.

Would I like to see at least half of the attention go to women?  Absolutely.  But a gold star has to go out to Owen Rye.  Many of the other publications do not include a single woman.  Stay tuned!

Making Progress!

Adrienne Gradaur and Zach Quin have been making good use of the sunny days in Saskatchewan.  Look how far they have come in their new kiln build – the flue arch is up and curing.  You have to give these two young potters a round of applause.  The bricks they are using are heavy and much larger than those in the plans that were used for the School of Art’s new Bourry Box kiln.  But as anyone reading this knows, if you are a potter with a studio at home and a young family, you take what you can get your hands on and make it work!  They are doing just that.  Can’t wait to see where the pair will be in another couple of weeks.

If you are around Lloydminster and want to lend a hand, even for a few hours and you know what you are doing, track them down.  You can also contact them through Smiling Cow Pottery.  Well done you two.  So proud of you.

‘The Bob Show’ needs you. Are you a former student of Bob Archambeau? Do you know someone who was?

2018 marks 50 years that Robert (Bob) Archambeau has been with the School of Art.  On November 28, a small exhibition of his work in celebration of his teaching and mentorship will open at the School of Art Gallery.

How can you help?  If you are a former student of Bob’s or you know someone who was, please contact me.  I am looking for stories, rememberings, and reflections on Bob as a teacher, mentor, and artist.  These will appear in the catalogue and on the walls of the gallery.

I am also looking for historic work and photographs.  Again, if you have photographs or work you could loan, please get in contact.  The School of Art Gallery is a class A gallery and the work is insured!

e-mail:  maryannsteggles@icloud.com    OR   maryann.steggles@umanitoba.ca

Thanks!