Kjell Hahn, longtime friend and colleague, has been working with John Dix, a ceramicist who fires of wood fired noborigama kiln. There is a firing coming up at the end of April and I went to Sasayama to help with the preparations which included chopping up a lot of wood. John recently received wood from old dismantled homes in the countryside. This wood needed to be cleaned and purged of all old rusty nails and metal fasteners. Kjell and I used a chainsaw to cut the wood into sections that fit into a mechanical wood splitter. John’s assistant Shiro also joined the wood chopping fun.

The firing will consume an enormous amount of wood and therefore, we also began to clean up the area around the kiln to have an organized place to start staging the wood. Kjell tells me that during the fire everything becomes hectic and you do not want to have to hunt for any needed supplies. The firing will span four to five days. Workers will sleep in shifts with John and Kjell becoming the most sleep deprived. I plan to be there for the last three days of the fire. Before then pots must be finished and the kiln loaded.