The Titel of my lecture is a little bit different from what was published in the timetable, you will have noticed that „y“ in brackets. Well, when I started thinking about how to present Woodfiring in Germany to you it was quickly clear that I didn’t want to do something like reading a phonebook, and I have to apologise to all my German colleagues that I will not mention here.

But what else than a phonebook?

I sometimes write or translate for German or English ceramic magazines and so I thought, maybe the different languages could be a good point to start from. Our language unites and divides us at the same time: language is a fundamental condition of human beeing and community because it is one thing that we cannot do without having someone else to talk to. We can split and stack wood, make pots and fire kilns alone, although it makes sometimes sense to collaborate with other people. But it doesn’t make sense to speak when we are alone and with some right doing so is recognised as a sign of insanity.

But when we speak different languages that fact divides us from each other; how we are saying something is closely connected with our special history. The english word „translate“ comes from latin translatus „carried across“, the german „Übersetzen“ in the basic sense of the word means „ferry, convey in a boat, esp. across a short stretch of water“, and, as language is, water was always connecting and dividing people at the same time.

»Wood« in German means „Holz“,

»Fire« means »Feuer« and sounds very similar because of common roots, because of a common history. But Woodfire in our, in ceramic sense, isn’t translated with „Holzfeuer“, because this means every way of burning wood, so for example in an oven. But we can try the word „burn“, which is of German origin and translated as „Brand“. And indeed: the correct translation for woodfire is „Holzbrand“.

4 So if you come to Germany and like to visit woodfirers, type into your Browser „www.holzbrand.com“ and you have the special kind of phonebook that you need to just pick up the phone and try if someone in the chosen studio speaks English. This site cannot compete with Arthur Rossers sidestoke.com, but it gives you a good first access to further informations like for example the websites that some colleagues have. Also there is no map so I tried to draw one for giving you an overview about the locations.

All the red points show studios that are woodfiring

6 And you will quickly recognise that the most of them are located in East-Germany and here again the most in the North. I think that this fact is a good reason to concentrate a little on this region, despite my own workshop is also located in this area called Mecklenburg- West pommerania.

8 I live at Alt Gaarz, a hamlet on a peninsula near the biggest German lake, called the Müritz.

A very picturesque landscape with a lot of lakes that were formed during the glacial period.

This means: no stoneware clay in this area, and no long established pottery tradition. The clay deposits here can be used for red bricks or, at stoneware temperature, as a glaze.

The state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania is actually the sparsest populated area in Germany.

This factor allows for additional freedom, and not just under communist conditions. Or as the Russians always have said: Russia is wide and the tsar is far away. Together with the usually sufficient distance to the neighbour this sparseness might be one of the reasons for the relatively high number of woodfiring potters: holzbrand.com lists 15 woodfirers here, more than in all the west German states together! But for sure there are more reasons, so we might go a little into the depth of the history of east-German woodfiring.

„History“ is translated into German as „Geschichte“, a word that has a second meaning: Story

I like the imaginationation,that history comes from telling stories and I could now try to tell you the story, that the english word „history“ also contains a „story“, but I’m a little bit afraid that some linguistic educated people might be in the audience who know, that this word comes via Latin from Greek „historia“.

So I’d like to go a little back into that time when I was an apprentice. At the eighties me and many others dreamed of building themselfs a woodfired kiln for salt firing and some made their dream come true.

Among them was my teacher, Mario Enke. As a Member of the examination jury for apprentices as well as for Masters and as an IAC Member he was of some importance at that time. Now he moved away from his place and works as a painter.

16 He had many apprentices and practicians and all of us had an huge effort from his extraordinary throwing techniques as well as from his great technical and chemical knowledge.

17 His very effective 4.25m³ kiln reached 1360 centigrade within 12 hours. To achieve the surfaces he wanted Mario fired at least at 1460 centigrade.

His kiln had the sidestoked firebox under the chamber floor, a little bit like a phoenix-kiln, but with the chimney at the opposite.

19 I built my kiln in 1987, only one or two years earlyer than Mario. The kiln has over 3 m³ stacking space and takes 12 to 16 hours to the end teperature of 1350°C. For soaking and salting I take 4-6 hours, so together with the following cooling procedure it is always a long working day for me. The afterburner and the pre-heated secondary air help a lot in saving wood, epecially when it is not dry enough.

Usually I take a mix of pine and hardwood, such as oak and beech.

I find it very inconveniently, to split wood to the size of chopsticks, especially because I need relatively much wood: 4 RM per firing, 1 RM (space m) is a stack of wood of 1m to 1m to 1m and contains 0,7 m³ of plain wood. In Germany Wood for burning is usually cut and sold in pieces of 1m length. This way it is easy to handle and easy to stack.

23 But this amount of wood together with the fact, that the firebox is inside the kiln chamber gives a little bit more ash than salt fired pots in Germany usually have.

24

Another student of Mario Enke is Ute Dreist. Some Australian Potters will know her because last year she worked with Sandy Lockwood and took part in the Gulgong Event. She has a Phoenix type kiln and is indeed to some extend responsible for the fact, that many potters in Mecklenburg- West pommerania built that type of kiln. It was in the end of the eighties, when someone of the east German potters get a copy of the „Studio Potter“ volume 7 number 9, which was published in 1979. The beautiful and informative drawings of Gerry Williams’s kiln were very impressive. So they were copied by hand and Ute saw those copies and built her first kiln according to those plans.

The kiln worked successfully and so it became a blueprint for some following kiln buildings. This is actually Ute’s „New Kiln“ which was built in 2005. You might have noticed that there is a different firebox than the one that you saw at the drawing. This is due to the use of the kiln for salt firing, which requires a more solid firebox.

29 This picture shows the principle of this stone grate, but this is actually another kiln. This grate is very useful and became very common in Mecklenburg-West Pommerania.

31 Ute mostly produces vessels in her kiln, but nevertheless she dreams to make pots in an Anagama. So another impact to the east german woodfirere-scene is La Borne in central France, a traditional potters centre that hosts now a lot of woodfirers and is well known all over the world for events like »La Borne en feu« or »La Borne s’enflame«.

On this way Japanese influences came to north east Germany, as well as French traditions.

In 1997 I organised an exhibition in Rostock to which we invited the French ceramists Eric Astoul, Josette Miquel and Hervé Rousseau. This Piece is from Eric Astoul. Together with my wife I transported the remaining pots back to La Borne and Henrichemont. This journey left a deep impression.

34 We were happy to enjoy the hospitality of Hervé Rousseau and to watch Eric Astoul setting his kiln. (right side of the photo) I have to travel a relatively long distance to the nearest woodfirer. Here in La Borne you could see one woodfirer stacking his kiln while the neighbour was firing, and around the corner another was just unpacking. No wonder this place has had such a great influence on all the potters in Mecklenburg! For example in La Borne I saw how plates were placed in the kiln to protect areas of other pots from fly-ash and vapour.

35 I adapted this technique for my own purposes. I treat the surface of those plates like a paper collage: a mixture of different clays, slips and porcelain together with wadmarks and ash.

So in 2003 my colleague Armin Rieger had the idea for a woodfiring project: Anagama Adé.

Johannes Mann, another Mecklenburg Woodfirer, had built a longer catanary arch kiln with additional side stokes in 1989/90. The unusual distance between kiln and chimney was due to a maybe planned prolonging of the kiln in case of expanding the studios production. But in 1990 things changed: the demand for pots decreased dramatically and Johannes had to work and fire alone. The 3m³ (106cuft) kiln took about 30 hours minimum for one firing with salt. Like me Johannes is not the type of guy who likes to organise and teach a firing crew, especially in the rural north-east. So the last firing took place in 2000. 3 years later the kiln looked very romantic with all the plants around and the damaged kiln shed.

38 Johannes thought about dismantling.

So the idea was to fire it once again just to say good bye (or adé), together with other woodfirers for an extended period without salting.

Here in Mecklenburg my colleagues are using mostly small and efficient down-draft kilns up to 2 m³ (71cuft) for salt-firing, often with a Phoenix-design . Nobody has had any experience in woodfiring without salting, but for making the adventure complete Armin and I organised a couple of following exhibitions.

41 After easter 2004 the loading begun in a very exciting atmosphere.

Three days after a small fire for preheating was ignited. The further day went on very unexpected: after 18 hours of relaxed firing the 135 pyrometer cone touched toes which means that the end temperture of 1350°C was reached.

The word “pensioners kiln” was born. 38 hours of soaking followed. The kiln was sealed and left alone for a week.

44 For us the results were amazing. This for example is one of my teabowls from limoges porcelain. The outside has no slip or glaze, only the gifts from the kiln. So in the happy end we had enough work to present some very good exhibitions. One of those exhibitions took place in the Westerwaldmuseum in Höhr-Grenzhausen. This city is ververy famous for its long history in salt firing and has still lots of studios and ceramic and glass industry. Koblenz, the city that hosts the saltfire-comptition is nearby.

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