Tuesday, May 3, 2011

WOODFIRING JAMBOREE




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Whilst some of the inhabitants of this planet were killing a man, others of us in a far away corner of the world were peacefully involved in the 4 elements - earth, air, water and fire. The emphasis on fire, and in fact the 5th element too - wood. A wonderful workshop at the studio of Paul de Jongh and Nina Shand in MacGregor which is a charming country village about 180 kilometers out of Cape Town. The workshop was extremely inspiring - a small group of participants, we glazed and packed the bourry box kiln which subsequently fired for about 24 hours and took as long to cool down. During the stoking of the kiln, surface decorating and construction workshop with Hennie Meyer and a slide lecture by me. All supplemented with delicious food and wonderful videos of wood firing specialists like Gwen Hanssen Pigott, Ken Matsuzaki, Svend Bayer. This was 'real' pottery in the traditional sense! Unpacking the kiln extremely exciting with some encouraging results...thanks to Paul and Nina for a memorable weekend...

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