Ian Jones: Anagama

The anagama style kiln as been integral to my ceramic making since I came across a book titled “The Heritage of Japanese Ceramics” by Fujio Koyama in 1975. In this book there are images of unglazed works from Bizen, Iga, Tokoname and Shigaraki, and I was intrigued by the quality of surface on these pieces. An anagama, or “hole kiln” has a direct contact between the fire and the ceramics, depositing a natural ash glaze on the ware that is not reproduced by any other firing process.

I built my first anagama at Old Saint Luke’s in Gundaroo around 1984, and have been firing this style of kiln since then.

The relationship between the firing and the clay is all important to this type of firing, and we produce all of our clay for this kiln at our studio. Most of the pieces in this exhibition came out of the firing in July this year, although many of them have been fired multiple times. The porcelain/decomposed granite clay gets richer each time it is subjected to the 4 or 5 day firing in the anagama.