The traditional kiln for saltfiring was for a long time the so called »Kannofen«, which could be translated as »Pitcher Kiln«. It is an woodfired updraft kiln. Updraft because at that time nobody wished to have woodash on his pots and indeed the pots from such a kiln don’t show ash deposits. Although in earlyer times some kilns didn’t have a kilnshed most of the kilns were part of a whole building.

Law was passed in 1992 which made illegal the firing of these traditional kilns, although most of them already had been replaced in the 50s and 60s.

In 2005 I was invited to take part in firing the small 6,5 m³ Kannofen at the Institute for Artistic Ceramics and Glass at Höhr Grenzhausen. This is the Head of the ceramic workshop, Arthur Mueller, together with a chinese student stacking the kiln. This kiln was originally part the ceramic studio that was the basic for the foundation of the Institute. The former director, Barbara Stehr, was very interested in preserving this old kiln, wanting to make it an historic monument for the Westerwalder salt-glaze. Stehr applied for an industrial hertage order, and this application included the option to fire this kiln up to 3 times a year.

I had the graveyardshift on this kiln and fired it from 300 to 850 centigrade and later on the afternoon during salting. For me it was very exciting to see, how sensible this kiln reacted.

50 And, sure, it is a graet view to see all those Flames coming out of the kiln.

This is one of my pieces from that burning, although I have to say, that the results with my special clay were a little boring. So this is refired in my own kiln.

This is actually another Kannofen in Höhr grenzhausen, or I should better say it’s the other Kannofen because as far as I know only those bothe are left. For I think about 40 years this kiln was not used and conseqently in a bad condition. It is one of the bigger kilns with about 30 to 40 m³.

55 This long sleep ended, when Jens-Peter Planke and the owner, Charlotte and Siggi Böhmer, decided to to rebuild and fire the kiln.

Jens-Peter Planke is the guy that runs the www.holzbrand.com website and a woodfirer from Mecklenburg-West Pommerania some 700 km from Höhr-Grenzhausen. Here he is sitting in the firebox of the Kannofen during repair.

58 He makes traditional slip-glazed stoneware in his 4 m³ downdraft kiln and is successfull with his business. This allows him to engage himself in such larger projects that require a long time for preparing.

Because of the size of the kiln many helpers were involved.

Picturs 60- 73: rebulding, making wood, stacking, burning

Another well known German kiln is the so called Kassels Kiln named after the town Kassel which is surrounded by very special refractory clays. From this area I buy my wadding clay, which is very plastic, very sticky and very refractory at the same time.

This is Kathrin Najorka, loading her more than 100 years old Kassels Kiln. Until the first world war it was used by the grandfather of her grandfather to burn roof tiles and bricks. After world war 2 the factory changed into a pottery. The 16 m³ kiln was fired once every week with 6 tons of brown coal. Work around the clock with pressing plant pots during pre-heating. At least the quality of the coal became so wrong that her father had to shift more ash out than he shoveled coal in. In 1976 the since 10 years ordered electric kilns came and in the kassels kiln less and less firings were done until firings stopped. For this lecture here I asked her about the reasons for re-animating this much too large kiln. She wrote to me that as a young girl she never ever wanted to fire this kiln because of the hard labour. But some years later the dream to fire once again became stronger and stronger.

She asked Jens-Peter Planke for some help and in winter 2001 he and Johannes Makolies, Hanno Leischke, Birgit Hasse und Detlef Leps came in to work at her studio and burnt the kiln for the first time. She didn’t want to say much about this first time, only that the next firing was 4 weeks later and much better.

The kiln eats 3 tons of clay and 30 RM of wood. With preheating one firing takes 2 days.

78 Like an Anagama the kiln is accessed through the firebox, although the arrangement of the firedoor is a little bit different.

For getting the heat more to the back of the kiln 2 holes for sidestoking were drilled into the kiln. And please have a look at the chimney at the right side with the passive dampers.

This is a view in an exhibition of Kathrin in Dresden.

81 And this is a picture that she sent me one week ago, showing the building of her new Anagama. She decided to built this new kiln after she met Svend Bayer at the potters festival in Aerystwyth.

I hope you realised that with mentioning svend Bayer I’ve finally got a more or less direct connection to the ogama at Sturt, Mittagong, New South Wales, Australia.

So for now I only have to say „thank you“ to all the people that did almost every effort to make my stay here as good as possible. And for sure: I will make every effort to come back.