Martie (AKA the Kiln Priestess) on sun 7 may 06
Joyce:
Thank you for your kind comments last week about my web site. (This is the
second time that I am sending out this posting because I do not think that
my first try "took".)
I think that the subject of kiln gods is like many other subjects that
don't seem very substantial until you start looking more deeply into the
history behind that subject. The way that most people treat the subject of
kilns gods -- as something fun and entertaining to do while waiting for
the kiln to reach temperature, is very different from actual kiln god
worship practices in China and other Far Eastern countries. Personally, I
love to make whimsical kiln gods and I could never imagine myself actually
praying to a kiln god for support of my ceramic endeavors, but I also feel
more in touch with the firing process by understanding something about the
worship customs in China. I really get a lot of satisfaction from knowing
where some of our Western notions of kiln gods have come from.
Hong Kong is a wonderful place to encounter traditional temples to various
gods and it is a great place to see the over-lapping of old and new
traditions not to mention the ubiquitous exchange and merging of Eastern
and Western cultures. It is also for me a difficult place to write E-mail
and send Clayart messages. At the moment I feel as though I walking on a
tight-rope wire without a net because I am composing this message on the
Clayart web sit without spell-check. I noticed in my last hastily sent
message (I was worried about losing the message so I quickly hit "send")
that I made a fair number of typing errors. I also am without a standard
English dictionary so that is making matters worse. As soon as I get used
to this Dell computer (my computer at home in the States is a Mac) I will
try to write my messages in Word and then cut and paste them onto this
site. That should clear things up (until another problem crops up--like my
English dictionary is programmed with British spelling, which of course
would still be better than my own errors).I am also giving up on AOL
because there are not enough lines or connections here to send out
messages.
I am currently in the process of trying to figure out how we will get the
Skutt electric kilns into the building when they arrive in a few months.
Because we cannot make any alterations to the structure of the building
since it is a colonial sytle buidling and on the historic register, we
might have to take the kilns completly apart. There are a lot of
compromises that I will have to make when setting up the new studio at the
Hong Kong Baptist University Academy of Visual Arts because of the
configurations of the rooms.
Martie (AKA the Kiln Priestess)
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