KilnLore@AOL.COM on thu 14 apr 05
After reading about Mels informative posting about electric kilns in Japan, I
thought that I might add that everyone in Hong Kong also fires their work in
electric kilns. This includes classes in all of Hong Kong's many universities
and schools. The only exception is an occasional raku kiln, which is fired
with propane.
I helped to run a ceramic studio in Hong Kong for three years (1996-1999) and
I also taught at the Pottery Workshop and at an International High School
there for part of that time. In all of these locations we fired with
electricity. Also, I taught a ceramics course at the Hong Kong Museum and they also fired
with electricity.
There is one rare intact hill-climbing kiln in Hong Kong, in the New
Territories region, that is no longer fired, but it is protected as a cultural site
even though it is still privately owned. The potter who owns the site inherited
the kiln from his father who once fired it for commercial purposes. (The kiln
can no longer be fired because of the smoke that it would produce.) This
potter now teaches ceramics using electric kilns and commercial glazes that he
imports from Laguna Clay in Calif. In fact, when I was teaching in Hong Kong I
ordered all of my ceramic supplies from this potter who in turn ordered from
Laguna (He is a distributor for all of the products that Laguna carries). I even
ordered a Brent slab roller from him and all of our clay.
The studio that I helped to run, called I-Kiln Studio was located in Kowloon,
in the Flower Market district. We had a raku kiln on the roof top and we
fired in one of the most densely packet regions of Hong Kong. I was always worried
that someone would call the fire department, but no one ever did because in
Hong Kong it is common to burn offerings to the various gods for good luck. I
assumed that everyone just figured that we were very devout worshippers and
that we were trying to fix a lot of bad-luck by burning a lot of offerings to
the various gods. There was even a small built-in, floor-level, tiled shrine
located at the top of the stairs just in front of our studio door that was
dedicated to the hallway god. Our studio where we taught classes was located on the
third floor of an old building that did not have an elevator. It was a
cramped, but very cool place with a live Indian-fig tree growing into the cement on
the rooftop of the building that we also rented.
Needless to say that with all of this worshipping going, that I had to also
dedicate a shrine to the kiln gods on the rooftop (this was my idea, my Chinese
partner and the proprietor of I-Kiln Studio had never heard of kiln gods).
With the help of my husband who is of Chinese decent, we painted a dedication to
the kiln god (I found some references in a history book about the first
emperor who was also a potter) in Chinese on a large cement post just behind the
raku kiln. I think that the dedication worked because we never had any accidents
and the fire-department was never summoned. However, I'm afraid that I may
have traumatized the occupant of the apartment next door who probably thought
that I was sending bad feng-shui his way. One day when I was working on the
rooftop alone he came running out onto the rooftop of his adjoining building and
in an agitated way he gestured and shouted many things at me that I did not
understand. He also kept pointing and yelling in the direction of the raku kiln.
I still don't know if it was the smoke that bothered him or if thought that
my shrine and writings had sent him some bad luck. After that I never saw the
man again.
Martie Geiger-Ho
adjunct art instructor,
University of Pittsburgh at Bradford,
and potter-still-at-large, (I think the cultural police in Hong Kong are
still looking for me).
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