Anagama-West: Pyromaniac's Pottery | Wood Fired Stoneware & Porcelain

Greetings. I present this website to all people who love woodfired pottery. What follows is a short little story about an anagama - it's construction, it's firing, and the people who helped bring it all together. Indeed, no anagama can ever be a solo experience and in my case, three people in particular have enabled me to realize a long standing dream. First, Shiori Noro translated Furutani Michio's () book: Anagama: Building Kilns and Firing*, published by Rikogakusha (Rikogakusha's pottery books). In addition to the raw translation, I have received a tremendous amount of advice and guidance from Dick Lehman on all manner of subjects ... construction, firing, clay bodies, and importantly, his inciteful comments and corrections to the translated text.	Without Furutani's guidance, Shiori's translation, and Dick's willingness to share his experience, I do not think my dream of building an anagama would ever have been fulfilled(). I owe each a deep debt of gratitude and I mean it from the bottom of my heart when I say "thank you". Why did I build this thing? It's about fire! I learned about anagama kilns sometime in 1991 during my very first pottery class. Over time, the idea of an anagama, and big flame*, smoldered as a daydream, ignited into desire, and finally exploded into pure need. My satisfaction began one hot June day in 2002, when I stomped a shovel through matted grass, and began what was to be a summer of digging. Odin*

() Note that R. Yellin has 3 articles regarding Furutani. Links to the other articles are at the bottom of the linked page. (*) The information I received was solid gold. Before I began this project, the only anagamas I had ever seen were in pictures. I never helped build or fire an anagama, I didn't even have wood fire experience of the usual sort. I think it says a lot about the quality of the instruction when a complete novice can take that information and build a working kiln.