Just finishing up preparations for the annual woodstoke firing in penryn on Rodney Mott’s land. Rodney’s a madman, which is why we love him so here at Djiboogo. If you are completely unfamiliar with the concept of woodfire, the basic idea is this: A large, cigar shaped brick igloo built up a gentle hill, filled with pottery. The “cigar” shaped chamber could stand alone, which might make it called an anagama. I think this basically translates as “one chamber kiln” in japanese. There can be chambers after the cigar shaped one, usually taking the form of arches. This then becomes a “noborigama” or many chambered kiln. In the very front, a sort of large hearth with a grate and a small door that can be closed. At the top of the kiln highest on the hill is a twenty or more foot chimney. Japanese terminology suffuses “modern” woodfire as the technique was refined to great success in Japan, though perhaps the Koreans actually invented the method to highfire ceramic with wood and these sorts of kiln. I’m not really sure about any of that, and am not really all that concerned who invented the wheel, as long as it rolls, and many thanks, inventors. In any case, you and some other crazies throw as much wood as you can in the small hole, starting slowly and gradually building tempo over the course of days. It eventually gets to throwing maybe 5-20 pieces every minute for what could be days, around the clock. In goes wood, out comes smoke and ash. It isn’t uncommon at one of rodney’s firings to go through 3 or more cords of wood in as many days. For those of you who love esoterica, a cord of wood is four feet by four feet by eight feet. A peck of peppers is less than a gaggle of geese, but more than a cubit.

Here’s a semi-crappy pic of one of these naborigamas being built. You can sort of see the basic layout of the front, main anagama chamber, the small bricks in the dirt. You can also see one of the rear arch chambers behind, built from the large bricks. This kiln, incidentally, is on Dick Hotchkiss’s land. He builds kilns from handmade bricks from mainly gathered materials, which is pretty bad ass. We’re not aware of too many people who do that. Djiboogo had the pleasure to help with this kiln, though it isn’t fully built yet. Hotchkiss is also the guy who has helped us a lot with finding and using wild clay. There’s something strangely satisfying about digging some dirt out of the land to form your oatmeal bowl. . .

In any case, here’s a really crappy photo of one of the kilns on Rodney’s land, complete with a transfixed Djiboogo member on the side, staring into infinity. This particular kiln is called “big mama”. It is another really funky kiln in that it has five chambers, including two front anagama chambers, side by side. You can see the left “leg” and “belly” chamber here, with the non-visible right leg leading directly down to the person in the beanie. The belly chamber leads to two arches chambers, her “breasts” and “head”. Hence big mama. There’s quite a good perspective of the blue tarp here, and stacked stools. Those things are always really vital at a woodfire.

We at djiboogo have somewhat mixed feelings about the process, as it creates huge amounts of smoke, and is [somewhat] inefficient. There is often loss of some of the pieces in the kiln, also, as the process is rather raw, uncontained, and brutal on the pieces. (especially at one of rodney’s firings) It takes a huge amount of work to pull one off, and in general, the extra effort and sacrifice is unnoticed and unrewarded in appreciation by the general viewing public. On another angle, it is an ancient and magical event, one which keeps us awake and glued to the kiln at 2 am, head buzzing, eager to stuff our hands back into the 2000 degree hole, to burn some eyelashes, toast a knuckle, fry some skin. After the firing, the kiln usually cools for as many days as it fired for, and the pottery comes out of the kiln looking like it was kept at the bottom of the ocean for a few centuries. Here’s an example of a porcelain torso which went into the kiln unglazed, undecorated. The crust and color you see on the body is all the result of wood ash and ganja smoke. Ahem.