Hiro Matsusaki on sun 23 feb 97
Inspired by recent posts on the use of electric kiln for reduction (Mel
Jacobson, cows, 20/02/97), and similar ones on kiln building or repair, I
throw in mine.
Before starting on serious talk, let me show some compassion to those who
have refused to be milked but succumbed to the temptation in order to
survive, or those who have been obliged to get by with what they cannot give,
(the milk, that is), or forced to get by with less (with poor milk
substitutes).
Horses are not milked in North America. Goat milk is given to the young who
need to be fed out of necessity (if that becomes necessary due to injury or
death in the family). Cow's milk is not an acceptable substitue. It is
detested. It hardly works. Only the ignorant would attempt the almost
deadly substitution. This is from my observation at the foothills of the
Rockies, but I do not own a racehorse. Likewise, goat milk is a must to the
young humans with allergies to cow's milk. Since it's sweeter, I use it all
the time in my coffee. Contrary to the myth of tin cans and garbage, goats
eat very much more organic. To put another nail in the coffin, I say that
horses eat better than cows, without subjected to any synthesized hormones
for greater production (economy) in their diet. After all, horses have only
two tits, like goats and humans. The appearance gets reflected in and on the
quality of what they produce.
They milk horses, don't they? Yessir, you bettya, they do in Mongolia.
With prolonged and occasionally vigorous shaking, the milk is turned into a
mild liquid whose alcoholic content is less than half of that for
dealcoolized (misspelled intentionally) beer at .5%. I say this out of
memory, just to give you an idea. in case you may wish to experiment, you
are forewarned. It's not worth it. But at least it is less injurious to
your ego as compared to an experiment to convert an electric kiln into a gas
reduction. Back to horses' milk, in the vast dry plains climate there (the
Gobi or some such desert is not far away), this makes sense -- to make a
nutritious, healthy and pleasant drink out of horse milk. They are not
stupid. But. ... ... Their favorite and regular drink, incidentally, is
green tea, my favorite subject. Trust me on this.
Seriously, it's not the milk or the gender we should worry about. Some
horses cannot give any milk, let be milked, due to the chromosone. That is
one element inherited, much like the ability to throw clay. Once... ... I
was a horse, running to get the most out of a gas kiln. I envied cows with
electric kiln, since some pots coming out of exidization at ^6 pictured in
pottery books looked far better, more vibrant than reduction at ^10. So I
tried to be a cow. You know how the neighbor's lawn look tidier, neater and
greener. This horse preferred organic gardening, and no mowing or mewing. A
mess at own yard, anyway. Anything must have looked better the other side of
the fense. Looking out, I realized that, generally, cows occupied a much
larger space, the greener pasture, and they did not have to run at all.
With four tits, their productivity sure would be higher. I was partly
motivated by greed, you see. After some prolonged and occasionally vigorous
shaking of whatever hanging from my breast and abdomen, I suddenly realized a
stark and naked truth.
There are no bad pots... ... only bad potters.
There I rest my case.
You can fire a stoneware in a raku kiln and reduce it. With a special design
such as Nil's, our life will get better, although I don't know what he is up
to. (Single-arm swiveling counterbalances circularly arranged? I already
have a patent there. No, just kidding, the system was invented long time ago
to hand dip a large number of beeswax candles.) A large fibre kiln is so
fuel efficient that you can strongly reduce it, and unevenly due to its size,
unless you watch out. Some pots come out good this way, others turn out much
worse for it. An old small electric kiln with thick brick walls and three
phase power connection (mine seems to weigh close to 300 lbs) should make an
ideal crystalline kiln. The elements are still good, but why bother? Just
use propane gas, and prop up the lid for rapid or delicate heating or cooling
with a device that has a counterbalanced weight. As simple as that.
Likewise, the lid of an old electric kiln makes a convenient flattop for a
homemade small gas kiln, but the effort is hardly worth it. The size or
capacity of an electric kiln normally do not permit the firing experiments
which the horses love to try. The kiln is too small for a variety of reasons
to be worthwhile. It's like firing stoneware in a raku kiln. Only a weany
bit better. It's like when a computer hangs due to a software glitch. I
seldom call any technical help hot line. (A beta tester would use an email
to notify, however.) Better switch to a different software or try to get the
same results by other means.
The tinkering of the kiln is for engineers or electricians. They do not have
to know anything about pottery. They do whatever they are told. Some kiln
builders, by this time you may have realized, are not potters. By the same
token, better judge not the pots that come out of any kiln. Only the potters
count. And the potter/artist knows. The greed does not make a bad better,
only worse. Commercial kilns may be strongly motivated by this thing called
greed.
It may be high time to discuss the basic parameters involved in kiln building
for a studio potter/artist. Like size, ease of use, fuel economy, materials,
flexibility, convenience, aesthetic availability, and so on. Which ones are
important, under what conditions, and for what artistic expression, etc.
From a horse that has not made a gender change to a cow. H.M.
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