Quite a small effective kiln and hardly any smoke.

The fire box.












View of the glow of the fire through hole in the chimney.

A mixture of sawdust and salt is put on wood which is shoved as far back into the stoke hole for salt-ash glazing.

The opening of the kiln.

Kusakabe-san holding a beautiful bowl.

Our results from the kiln.











.

The participants made their walk to the ceremony in the backyard by first passing a water basin to wash their hands for cleansing and purification. The garden around an official Japanese teahouse has a special design and architecture of trees and scrubs and a stone path meanders through the garden before you arrive at the water basin.

Kusakabe-san writes a greeting for the tea ceremony. In a teahouse you have a “Tokoname” alcove in which they have a scroll “takemono” hanging on the wall and a vase with a simple flower arrangement and an art object to admire.

Before pouring water in the “Chawan” with a ladle, Kusakabe-san puts in the matcha powder for the tea. Then he whips it up with a wisk.

On the table you see a simple flower arrangement from different grasses and one flower, a “Chaire”, tea caddy for the matcha tea and a “Mizusasashi”, water container.

Marc talks about the “Kiri” box, a container to put the wrapped chawan in. They had special boxes made for this show from cedar and they smelled wonderfully.

The exposition of Mazakazu Kusakabe-san and Marc Lancet.
Their pieces are fired in a wood-fired kiln. They are both experts in wood firing. Kusakabe-san is a master in designing kilns, especially at the moment the “Sasukenei” smokeless kiln. Please, see my former blogs and category of Kusakabe-san and kilns, and smokeless kiln.

Yasmin

Michael, Leni, Jessica and Evan.

Kusakabe-san Sensei stirring up the fire.

French toast in the morning.
After dinner around the fire place some playing on ceramic flutes made by Kusakabe-san.

Computer geek around the “Kosatsu”. Underneath this table is an electrical heater, but sometimes we had a little charcoal fire under there. Really nice and warm and wonderful for cold feet.

A delicious lunch prepared by friends.

Keeping track of the temperature.

No smoke at all from the biggest chimney! Smokeless!!!!

Finally, we add wood through the stoke holes for ash build-up and effects.
Unfortunately, I can not be there when they open the kiln, but I will post results as soon as I get some pictures.

We put straw on and around the
plate in the back. Straw has a
high silica content which will give a glassy line on the plate.

If you look close you will see the wads underneath the pots.

The closing of the kiln.

The door is pasted with paper clay and the fire starts in the ash box.

I arrived here in Miharu, Fukushima last Tuesday to work, throw some pots, at Kusakabe-san’s place and fire a kiln.
Miharu means “Three spring”: the first 3 blossoms in spring are: plum, cherry and peach: “ume, sakura and momo”. The “ume” blossoms already finished, but the Sakura is in full bloom and the peach like here in the entrance to Kusakabe-san farm house, is starting to bloom.

We also saw some wonderful sakura trees and the surroundings here is completely engulfed by the colors from white, light pink to dark pink. It is beautiful.

Cherry tree lighted up at night.

Kusakabe-san entering a temple.

Jasmin and Kusakabe-san underneath a Sakura tree.

The city Miharu: In the far back everything is pink also. Only it is not easy to see. (Click for enlargement).

And this morning at 6 am, we went to the “Takizakura”; the waterfall Sakura tree, here in Miharu. This tree is 1200 years old and poles support the heavy branches. It is a historic monument. Already so many people were up to admire the tree. This weekend lots of people will be visiting this Sakura tree. And the roads will be blocked all around town!

Steve explains how the procedure goes.

Steve starts the gas firing.The temperature will be at 900 Celsius in 1 hr.

Almost ready for take out.

Jennifer taking out pots.

You put the pots in a trash can. There was lots of paper in there. When it starts burning you quickly close the lid to get the reduction going, which affects the glazes.

Still some burning  and flames.

The pots were taken out, put in water and put on a ledge to cool of further and look at the beautiful colors!

We raku fired the big bowls and finished the workshop with a tea ceremony in our chawans and admired Tatsuo Shimaoka-san’s teabowl which Euan owns.

Thank you Steve, Euan and Kusakabe-san for the wonderful, interesting Art of Tea workshop!

Kusakabe-san showed us how.

In the evening we enjoyed our last dinner together in a Balinese restaurant.

Milan, Ixchel, Euan, Jennifer, Helen, Catherine, Kasakabe-san, Steve, Micha and Titus.

Lisa, Laura, Marianne, Swanica, Heather, Rebecca, Debi, and Jennifer. Unfortunately, Amber is missing, but with her due date for her pregnancy almost being up, she always went home to rest after our full days.

He starts out trimming with a bamboo stick to make it even and to clearly mark the beginning of the bottom part of the bowl.

And of course every foot has a different name with the specific type of bowl.

Then we went to the Nihonbashi district in Tokyo to the Toyoda restaurant from Master Chef Touru Hashimoto-san.

Hashimoto-san shows us how the old restaurant looked like.

You have all kinds of different tea ceremonies. One of them is very elaborate and starts with a dinner. The food is very specially prepared and also the service ware is specifically chosen. Very important is to choose foods from the season as well as the dinnerware has its specific seasonal colors. Hashimoto-san prepared the dishes for this ceremony.

It all tasted very delicious and is exquisite to eat food prepared in such a caring way.

The 2nd day started out with a demonstration of Euan Craig to make different kinds of ceramic ware for the food part of the tea ceremony: “Chakai seki dori”. They were all busy throwing or making slab plates or using plaster molds to make plates.

Then, after eating a delicious bento box lunch, we went to see the Tea Master Saito Noriko.
We’re waiting for the train to Kita-Kamakura, an one hour train ride.
We divided in two groups and I took 8 participants to the Engakuji Temple (see blog 5/14/06 or Kamakura/Temple category) and the Kamakura Old Pottery Museum, which I just had visited last week (see blog 10/17/08 or category Kamakura).

It was pouring, but that gave a special, wonderful, mystic atmosphere.

A  lantern on the Engakuji grounds.

Saito Noriko-san and her team of helpers. In the back ground the Tokonoma with a scroll “Kakemono”. I wrote earlier about the teaceremony (see blog 2/9/07 or category chanoyu tea ceremony).

When we arrived again at the International School of Sacred Heart, Kusakabe-san showed us how to make teabowls other than throwing.

Here he makes a coil tea bowl.

He makes a tea bowl by carving out a block of clay. First, he made a texture on the outside and trimmed a foot. Then you empty the block with a carving tool.

Euan drying a textured, slip colored block of clay with a torch. Debbie throws it on the floor to make it a slab from which she later made a vase.

Jennifer making a vase out of the torched slab and working on a coil pot.

Helen and Milan both working on a block chawan.

Steve Tootell, the organizer and camera man and everything else. He made everything possible. Thank you.