Wood-Firing on Denman Island

On March 14th, I arrived on Denman Island, off Vancouver Island just south of Comox, to take part into the firing of Gordon Hutchens’s 10-year old anagama kiln. The kiln was loaded on the 15th. It took Gordon about 7 hours to carefully position the pieces of everyone in his 300 cubic feet Japanese-type kiln: all along that process, he tried to envision how the flames were going to travel through the pots. Fire is like water: it will take a direct line from the firebox to the chimney if given a chance! So pots have to be carefully placed to break the fire path to make sure each piece is circled with the roasting ash loaded flames. Around 8 o’clock, the door was partially bricked up leaving an opening for stocking. Ambers from the fire pit were introduced at the bottom of the firebox and fire was slowly built up to warm up the kiln and its load and then to start climbing up to 2400ºF over 3 full days! The front third of the 12 feet long cocoon-like chamber is the firebox with a grid floor where the logs are stocked; shelves are stacked in the remaining of the stepped chamber. Since the back is where it’s going to be the coolest (cone 10 after 3 days), the glazed pots are loaded first. The mid-section of the shelves (cone 11 down) is a mix-match of glazed and unglazed pots, and the front stack (cone 12 completely down) is preferably unglazed pieces. For the first 2 days, the stocking hole stayed open to hold back the fire and to prevent the front stack to get too hot compare to the rest of the chamber. Being able to peek at the flames swirling around the pots added a lot of insight to the experience!

All participants had 3 shifts of 7-8 hours long. Each 10-15 minutes, two persons would each pass seven Fir logs from Gordon’s property to the two stockers who would throw alternatively a log at a time into the firebox in a few seconds. For once the wood hits the burning wood in the firebox, it takes no time for the new flames to start liking the outside of the stocking hole and it’s then impossible to get near it… Once cone 010 is achieved, the reduction can start. We started to stock with ½ damp wood, ½ dry wood. For the first 5 minutes or so after each stocking, the kiln would spit out black smoke by all possible openings! The kiln would loose 15 to 20 degrees each time we stocked to only start climbing up again and gaining a few more degrees –or not!- 5 to 10 minutes later. When the fire quiets down, it’s time to stock again. In between stockings, we would replenish the stocking wood, split some extra logs, share experiences, eat, play or listen to music, exchange e-mail addresses, eat again…After 72 hours of a “quiet” but steady firing, on the 17th at 7pm, all openings of the kiln were sealed with a mixture of clay and sand except for two brick dampers in the chimney to prevent it from overheating. The kiln was unloaded three days later to reveal beautiful surfaces on all and every pieces! Gordon said that it was the best firing he had in 23ish firings!

The slow increase in temperature, the intense reduction we got, the rain we didn’t get, the strong winds at times, the harmony around the anagama, the force of the flames and tons of well melted ashes had achieved gorgeous pots! Gordon was the first one to handle each piece in wonder, studying every aspects of the passage of the flames loaded with ashes before passing it out. All the pots were placed on tables in the same order they were loaded so we could have an overview of the firing. It was an incredibly great experience! Gordon Hutchens is not only a magnificent potter who masters a wide range of firing and glaze techniques –www.gordonhutchens.com- but also an excellent “pedagogue”. He also is a very gentle man with a strong profound sense of life in all its diversity. It was a great privilege to have the opportunity to fire with him.