Day 1
Kyono Katsura is a Bizen trained potter living in Marubashira, between Iga and Shigaraki. The pictures show his small kiln that he fires Bizen ware in. He will be firing from Friday the 2nd. through Sunday or Monday. The total size of the kiln is small, about .7 cubic meters. It holds two stacks of 30cm by 40 cm. shelves, for a total of 4-6 levels in each stack. The fourth picture shows what looks like broken greenware. He uses them as bases for cups or other tall ware. The shielding created by the base helps to make “keshiki”, landscape in the finished piece. The landscape is the change in the design in the surface of the finished ware. A piece that is all one color isn’t very interesting, a piece that has an abstract design drawn by flame, ash and color is.
The picture that shows three bins of cut and split Japanese red pine also shows, to the right, what looks like charcoal. The packages contain a processed “log” of red pine oil and resin. They are cheap, about 700 yen per package. In a small kiln they are useful because they give a small, intense flame that doesn’t have the trademark 5 meter long flame that Japanese red pine has. It would be the same as using oak or other short flamed wood, only much cheaper.
He has an interesting answer to very cold throwing water in the winter.
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