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SPECIAL EXHIBIT
Special Exhibit
Highlights Schedule:
Painting with
Fire: Wood Fired Ceramics Events
schedule
Friday Evening, June 20th
7:30 - 8:30
Presentation and Panel Discussion in the Theatre
Fee: $5.00 at the
door
Special guest Robert Barron, of Australia and five anagama wood fire
artists from Oregon share their expertise and vision of the wood fire
process. As kiln owners who create community through the collaborative and
creative efforts of wood firing, they are a rare breed of alchemists who have a
passion for clay, fire and potters. Panelists include Hiroshi Ogawa, Tom
Rohr, Stephen Mickey, Richard Rowland and Ruri.
Saturday, June
21st
11:00 AM, Hiroshi Ogawa, Artist and Kiln Owner will lead a tour
of the exhibition
1:00 PM, Natalie Warrens, Curator and Artist will lead
a tour of the exhibition
See Schedule for times of other
tours.
Saturday and Sunday June 28th and 29th
Kiln and
Studio Tours - Several local kiln owners will invite the public to
visit their studios and see their kilns. Beautiful, one of a kind
sculpture and pottery will be available for viewing and purchase. Maps of
kiln locations and scheduled times of studio and gallery tours will be available
at the exhibition.
Painting With Fire: Wood Fired
Ceramics
In a world that is racing toward advanced technology in everyday studio
processes of artists, there is a small niche of ceramic artists who are finding
personal solace in the simple act of an ancient firing process and philosophical
beauty created in a community called 'wood fire.
Painting with
Fire: Wood Fired Ceramics will premiere at the 45th annual festival and
will be the largest exhibition of wood fired ceramic art ever assembled in the
state of Oregon. Twenty prominent international and national artists will
be featured, as well as the work from twenty kiln owners in the Pacific
Northwest. In addition to this prestigious collection, 42 pieces from juried
artists from around the country will also be exhibited. Educational
displays will feature information about artist's kilns, the history of the art
form, and techniques used to create the art.
Beautiful Color with
Unpredictable Results
Curator of Painting with Fire,
Natalie Warrens comments that the most important reason to feature this work is
"the need to educate the public about the process and the effect it has on the
work, and most importantly, the community that is created to fire the
work."
"My first firing was in June of 2000 when Terry Inokuma and Barb
Campbell invited me to a workshop at Hiroshi Ogawa's," Warrens reflects on her
introduction to the world of wood fire. "I was instantly hooked not only because
of the beauty of the fire and connections to the participating artists, but I
realized that for the first time in 30 years of making pots, we were
actually firing the kiln. We were creating the fire as
opposed to using a captured source of energy that is released as a result of
electricity or combusting gas."
The two common misconceptions about wood
fired work are that it is like Raku, and that the pots resulting from wood
firing are brown.
Raku pieces are often the product of a one-hour process
of firing reaching a relatively "low" temperature of 1800F. This is at the
opposite end of the spectrum for wood fired pots. Most wood firings start at a
minimum of 20 hours and some last from 4 - 10 days, stoking wood into the kiln
every 10 minutes, and reaching temperatures of more than 2300F. In
addition, this labor-intensive method of wood firing has many unpredictable
variables such as Pacific Northwest weather, type of wood and barometric
pressure. The tasks involved with a multi-day firing of a kiln are as varied and
many, from managing the curing wood, to organizing and cooking dinners for over
14 hard working artists. These potters gather at a kiln site to join as a
community and create geology by transforming the earth to
gemstones.
This intense and demanding collaborative
process layers the ash onto the pots where the fire paints the pieces with
various colors and textures. When the kiln reaches temperature and the artists
feel there is enough ash, they will end the firing. The kiln can take up to a
week to cool in order to unload it. "This is a letting go process," says
Warrens, whose ceramic business for the past twenty years has relied on an
electric kiln, which she can digitally program to get consistent results.
Warrens continues, "Because the pieces are pushed to high temperatures for so
long, the gem like surfaces often reveal a constellation of beautiful and
complex markings."
Along with this extreme heat, many other elements
affect the outcome of each piece: clay; season of firing; condition and genus of
wood and placement in the kiln. And then there is fate; many vessels do not
survive the kiln; of those that do, there are never two that emerge exactly
alike.
Robert Barron, special invited guest of the exhibition, is an
innovative Australian artist recognized world-wide for his pioneering techniques
in wood firing. His unique technique of pulling pieces off the kiln's shelf
during a firing and moving them in the cinder-filled fire box creates artwork
with multidirectional flows of ash. He, like so many wood fire potters, has
embraced the concept that one must keep their intuition, intellect and egos in
balance while maintaining respect for other artists in the creative
process.
Hiroshi Ogawa, one of the jurors and exhibitors in the special
exhibit, is well known for his strong teaching philosophy which has influenced
many of the featured artists to build their own wood or atmospheric kilns.
His history as a studio potter of 34 years, and wood fire potter and kiln owner
for 14 years, makes him among the most experienced wood fire ceramic artists in
Oregon. Hiroshi will give a tour of the exhibit Saturday June 21st at 11
am.
Artist Terry Inokuma creates many of her pieces in an anagama kiln
which resembles the cave-style kilns of Japan. The anagama firing process lasts
for more than 100 hours with artists continuously stoking the fires until
interior temperatures of the kiln reach 2000-plus degrees Fahrenheit. Ms.
Inokuma comments, "To me, these anagama firings are about creating community as
much as they are about creating beautiful surfaces on clay forms. Each
piece made contains all the years of lives past, memories and the creative
process which evolves within each artist as a result of the influence of this
process. I am constantly fascinated by the preservation of a moment in
time as impermanent as fire onto something as permanent as stone. I
have found that wood fired ceramic forms convey a presence very different from
pots with any other surface quality."
Artist Sam Hoffman says, "I am
passionate about firing with wood because it enables me to have one foot in the
past and one in the future. Using ancient kiln styles, natural fuel sources, and
traditional pottery forms gives a nod to the history of ceramics, while taking
advantage of modern refractory materials, contemporary tools and chemicals,
keeps me searching for unique surfaces. Although there is often much loss
involved when firing in a wood kiln, the organic patterns that are produced
warrant the risk. While this technique is not particularly efficient, it is
physically and mentally stimulating; intense concentration and stamina are
required to manage the rhythmic stoking cycles inherent to wood firing. This
approach provides me with a natural complement to the meditative process of
throwing pottery on a wheel."
People visiting this exhibition will be
able to meet many of the exhibiting artists on Friday evening when the three
jurors Robert Barron, Tom Rohr and Hiroshi Ogawa, along with kiln owners Stephen
Mickey, Ruri and Richard Rowland, give a presentation and lead panel discussions
on the process, aesthetic and philosophy of wood fire.
The desire
of this unique and growing group of artists is to get the work into the hands
and homes of an appreciative public. The soulfulness of the pieces
reflects the passion and spirit of the artists, and the gift of the fire in the
work, brings an energy to the expressed space where the pieces find
solace. Whether utilitarian or sculptural, the pieces speak for themselves
and capture a historical event while celebrating the union of the four elements,
earth, water, air and fire with the human touch.
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