THE CANADIAN SOCIETY OF DECORATIVE ARTS
The Canadian Society of Decorative Arts/ Cercle canadien des arts décoratifs was formed, with the generous support of the Macdonald Stewart Foundation, to provide a forum for all those interested in the decorative arts.
The Ontario Arts Council is an Agency of the Government of Ontario
the dancing ash
wood-fired ceramics
Mary Ann Steggles
click image to enlarge
For as long as individuals have been shaping clay into vessels and objects, wood has been used as a fuel for transforming the malleable earth into a durable vessel or sculpture. The earliest objects were fired in shallow pits or bonfires where the temperature only reached about 820 degrees Celsius. The Chinese were the first to perfect kilns that could achieve 1200 or 1300 degrees. Many experts believe that these innovations likely began during the Shang dynasty (the sixteenth to the eleventh centuries BCE).
Simple bottle-shaped kilns evolved into the first climbing or stepped chamber kilns commonly called ‘the dragon kiln’. The long chamber of a dragon kiln typically required the pots to be stacked from back to front and, depending on their height, the stacker had to crawl to position the wares in the chamber. Once loaded, the opening that had been used to load the pottery was sealed and wood was placed in the firebox at the mouth of the kiln. The heat from the stoking moved through the kiln from this firebox to the flue (there is no chimney in this type of kiln).
Within two thousand years, these kiln designs spread to Korea and Japan where they were transformed into other types. In Japan, the single-chamber climbing kiln is known as the anagama (‘cave kiln’). The Japanese altered this design to create the multi-chambered noborigama kiln which is also built on a slope. The wood can also be fed using side ports.
... to read on please subscribe to ORNAMENTVM
Published twice a year, Ornamentvm is the only magazine that covers the huge spectrum of Decorative Arts in Canada. Subscription to this beautiful, full-colour publication costs only $20 per year