Wood-fired Stoneware and Porcelain

Jack Troy.
Chilton Book Company, 1995.
153 pp., illustrated, appendix.
$34.95.

Unlike raku, woodfiring in America cannot be thought wholly the result of foreign influences. Wood has been the fuel of choice for potters on this continent for centuries - for the untold generations of Native American potters as well as for traditional potters in more recent, colonial times. Not until the middle of the 19th century, with the introduction of electricity and gas as industrial alternatives, was wood superseded as a fuel for pottery kilns. Yet even today wood continues to be a viable means of firing, used mostly by a small but increasingly visible band of fanatic, often culturally eccentric, American potters, who believe deeply in the pyrotechnic abilities of wood, and who find epiphany in the fire's mark.

Wood-fired Stoneware and Porcelain, a new book by Jack Troy, is a solid contribution to the field. Poet, potter, teacher, and author, Jack Troy has produced a well-written, well-researched and illustrated book, catholic in its coverage of the subject. As a potter, Troy has a strong, personal involvement with woodfiring. He is an eclectic historian with a deep appreciation for other peoples and cultures. His often poetic language illuminates the meaning to be found in his subject. This important book will clarify a complex process for its readers and cultivate in them a lively appreciation of woodfired pots.

Troy cites two books as critical to understanding American woodfiring: Daniel Rhodes' 1970 Tamba Pottery, and Louise Cort's 1977 Shigaraki: Potters' Valley. Both books describe traditional Japanese woodfiring within its historical context.

He sets the background for Western woodfiring, first in France, then in the United States. In La Borne, France, a unique native clay, similar to Shigaraki clay, was known as far back as the 16th century to be unusually responsive to the effects of wood fire, and a strong tradition of functional, woodfired pottery flourished in this region. Today La Borne is still a mecca for potters and sculptors from all over Europe.

Woodfiring in our own Carolinas, North and South, is perhaps less well-known but equally important. Making use of the kaolinic deposits along the geologic fault line that runs through these states, potters were able to produce enormous quantities of woodfired salt-glazed and alkaline-glazed functional pots during the 17th and 18th centuries. Today the area still boasts some potters producing the traditional, salt-glazed ware.

Nevertheless, says Troy, most contemporary woodfire potters in this country are neither typical nor easily categorized. They range from those reacting in their work to prissy "ceramics" to others, curious about the process itself, who engage it in their search for self-discovery and personal expression.

Woodfiring, Troy writes, "is a dynamic eclecticism rivaling anarchy.... Perhaps one of its greatest assets...is its capacity to produce ceramics that have never been seen before, because the process owes so much to the unique combination of material, process, and human imagination - conjoined by fire...."

Each chapter of the book elaborates on this theme. "Kilns" covers location, materials, structural considerations, plans, and firing schedules. "Stacking" discusses loading strategies, the arrangement of pots, and zones. "Wood and Combustion" covers sources of fuel, wood preparation, and combustion; "Clays" reviews body types and clay formulas, and "Glazes" contains information on ash, the flash factor, and glaze formulas.

The book will be useful for both the novice and the experienced potter. It offers information gleaned from a wide variety of potters in America, as well as some from England, Australia, and Japan. However, its scope is limited in how it deals with very large kiln construction. Detailed information on complex anagama or naborigama kilns can be found in ceramic journals in articles by Will Ruggles, Douglass Rankin, and Frank Boyden among others.

A 24-page color portfolio provides a fine cross-section of stoneware and porcelain pots by justly celebrated potters, including Rob Bernard, Paul Chaleff, Randy Johnston, Joy Brown, Peter Voulkos, Peter Callas, Catherine Hiersoux, Malcolm Wright, and Jack Troy. Unfortunately, the choice of matt paper diminishes to a uniform gray many of the fine black-and-white photos of potters, kilns, and pots.

Jack Troy is understandably biased toward what Dan Rhodes has called "acts of God," the serendipitous effects of fire upon the clay surface that evolve not so much by chance as by natural happening. This romantic collusion between the wood-firer and God is readily understood in the context of Zen and Shinto aesthetics, but seems a little out of sync with our contemporary emphasis on psychological motivation and inner vision. A related criticism might be the "so what?" response. So what if it takes five days to fire the kiln? Is the resulting pot any better? Should anyone care? The "stewards of our work," as Troy calls them, collect such pots primarily for their extrinsic value and not necessarily for their intrinsic meaning.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that woodfiring in America has yet to come into its own. Perhaps we await the arrival of a redeemer, some new Paul Soldner who can with casual and intuitive grace transform woodfiring from a process burdened by the past into one with promise for the future. Nevertheless, even as we struggle to develop our own versions of an ancient art, we can borrow inspiration for all our work from those noble, impassioned, woodfiring masters who are everywhere. Thus Yu Fujiwara, a Japanese Bizen potter, speaks to the transcendental essence of firing with wood:

Around the clock the pine wood must be fed before Bizen is born... One feels like fainting and becomes dizzy before it is over. All the more for this hard work a burning desire to fight arises within me, challenging me to make better, always more desirable Bizen ware. How splendid the beauty of Bizen ware is, forever imprinted with the fire's markings, the madly dancing flames of the fire, which have burned so intensely for such a long time... Once man has developed a passion for Bizen ware, he is stunned by the thought that he has become a drug addict. Is there any other pottery than Bizen which drives man to such a degree of madness?

Reviewed by Gerry Williams. Studio Potter Network Newsletter, Autumn 1995.