Firing #105, first look

100 hours of firing we un-bricked the door and began unloading. This shot is the third stacking and you can see Alice's tea pot on the top shelf (left).

There were pots from three colleges and two high schools as well as the professional contingent regulars.

This was one of our best firings—even all the way from fron to back with Cone 12 flat!

Alice's Tea Pot from Wonderland

This latest tea pot from East Creek Anagama firing # 105. It is about 14" high and features slithering things one can only imagine.

In the shot taken inside the kiln you can see it in the upper left corner.

Girl with Red Hair and Blue Shoes

Latest paintings for Bush Barn show

preview 15 pages

Art of Play by Nils Lou | Make Your Own Book

So maybe it’s just a pot. Maybe the Greek guys were right. Yet it strikes me, looking into the maw of this volatile and strangely comforting furnace, that our foolhardy canoe slipping downriver into the current of an unruly past is bringing back something that the future needs. A sense of the vitality of the frankly physical. The nitty-gritty joy of sheer cussedness. The primal and transformative power of clay and blood and bone and raw human doing-ness that can’t be conveniently abstracted away by the intellectual arbiters of an overcrowded lockstep world. The fugitive pleasures of fun. The potters, the weavers, the carvers, the hand people, are our wild children and our pioneers and our roots. Let them feed the fires. Let them float the canoes. Likely as not, we’ll be needing what they know. ~Bob Hicks, Free Lance writer for the "Oregonian".

2011 March firing, East Creek anagama

Art Scatter, by Bob Hicks, photos by Richard Yates

This is the story of the East Creek anagama—gorgeous photographs by Dick Yates and a compelling poetic tale written by Bob Hicks, capturing the nuance of twenty-six years of
woodfiring in the Pacific Northwest. Read it at:

http://www.artscatter.com/general/circle-of-fire-tending-the-anagama-kiln/

The Goat Who Ate My Art

"The Goat Who Ate My Art" is characterized by a sculpture constructed by my good friend and colleague, Totem Shriver. The "Goat" periodically finds new "positions" around the art building—sometimes on the roof (as in this case), sometimes under a bush. But always watching for a chance to eat "My" art. He is illustrated in the book, often at the end of a chapter, symbolizing the threat of falling victim to imitation. He is, after all, the god of the authentic.

I've had this core sample for years knowing I would ultimately find a home for it. It was cored from a brick wall for some purpose, but now rests on a curved part of this chunk of clay fired in Jim Busby's Caboose kiln. Woodfired to C12 in 40 hours. The "core" is removable for use as a doorstop.