Portrait of a Kiln: Richard Munster
Richard Munster
Winter Park, Florida
Modified Train Kiln, Borry Box
I have realized over the course of the last several years that my love for hand built kilns very much echoes the same feelings that I had when I first discovered the surfaces of the objects that emerge from them: They are steeped in Story. Every object that comes from this kiln has a story to tell. The traces of each mark left in the clay by its maker's hand are highlighted by the flame and ash that pass over and settle upon its surface. The character and constitution of clay are revealed by heatwork, time and atmosphere. In some sense, the act of building & firing a kiln has a very similar narrative built into its framework. The acts of building and firing, solo or in teams, can make memories and teach lessons. It has potential to build or reveal character, forge friendships and lend a form of identity to the maker/s, firing crew and each ceramic object that is produced by the labor and human investment that is involved in actively tending to the cycle of heat, time and intention that are required to get the job done.
The history of each kiln out there, down to the very bricks that make up its walls have a bounty of stories baked into the facets of their becoming. The desire each artist has to embark upon the journey of building, maintaining and being responsible for their particular fashion of kiln will invariably reveal some history of their life and often projections for their future. The story of how each kiln Came to Be can reveal and echo histories, ambitions and intentions of its respective builder/s. Rarely does a kiln just drop out of the sky and have someone decide to dedicate their lives to it. Each build requires a deep investment of planning, consideration, consultation and communication and lastly, the sourcing of material and the labor of the build. This is not a sterile engagement. It is a lifestyle and a choice and a labor of love.
My decision to build my own kiln brought me to realize all of these things. It also came from a desire to work and learn at my own pace, in my own way, on my own clock and last but not least, limited only by my own faculty, decisions or circumstances. I have felt this way about my approach to making work for a long time so it seemed that the building and firing of a kiln which echoed that sentiment in the final stages of object production was appropriate, if not inevitable.
The pursuit of all of the required steps it would take to complete this task only further reinforced and revealed the waking realization I was coming to know: That at the core of each kiln I encountered or studied, each brick I acquired and every person I spoke to during the research & development phase of the build either revealed or generated a story. This has not only remained true over the course of my time firing this kiln, but it has been amplified as I have gotten to know others who have pursued their life in clay and brought the past back into focus as I reflected upon the early days of my relationship with building and firing kilns.
From my humble first encounters with a beautifully ramshackle wood fired kiln and a motley crew of warm and welcoming humans in the rolling suburban hills of Apopka, Florida to email threads and Instagram messages with folks from Australia to Spain; from the Copus Compound and the bevy of kilns dotting the mountains of western Carolina to following a story about a great & transformative migration of canadian refractories in the wilds of Ontario, I found the same deeply rooted story of each maker come to life through the lens of their proverbial partner in clay. A Portrait of each Person, and their Kiln.
My kiln’s design is referred to as a Train Kiln. Mine is slightly modified from the standard build plans, but it is a train kiln at heart. It is fueled with wood, fired from Friday through Sunday and consuming approximately 2 cords of split wood during this cycle. The design of a train kiln is rooted in the research of the American potter John Neely. It is the result of an attempt to replicate the surfaces of work from anagama kilns in a shorter and more condensed time frame than is customary for such kilns. Can objects be produced in three days that resemble those which have endured the flame and ash of ten days?
At the heart of the train kiln is the design of the firebox. Where the wood goes in. This design is referred to in texts as either a ‘downdraft firebox’ or more frequently, a Bourry box.
As many Englismen are want to do, a fellow by the name of Emile Bourry ‘discovered’ this design being used by potters in the LaBourne region of France to hard fire porcelain to temperatures above or at least equivalent to the required temperatures for english stoneware. Albeit more efficiently and with considerably less fuss.
This design employs a grate system, whereby the wood rests above the coalbed, rather than directly on it, thus allowing for air to pass over and fuel the ignition of a much greater surface area of the solid wood fuel as well as the embering coals. This efficiency produced a hotter and cleaner burning fire.
Additionally, this design produced considerably more fly ash. These are ashes from burning wood that ‘fly’ through the kiln, carried by the air that passes over the logs and coal bed, into the ware chamber where the pots are set. This ash eventually melts, forming a bond with the claybody, to produce a glass. This is an aesthetic that has been pursued by many cultures and potters over the years, but traditionally required many many days and an enormous supply of wood to achieve the desired depth and nuance sought after by practitioners of this particular style.
Two notable potters who set out to investigate and utilize and build upon this historically recorded firebox design were Steve Harrison (AUS) and John Neely (USA). Each of them sought different aesthetic and practical desires, but each stood upon the shoulders of the basic principles of this design to create a wood-fired kiln that could be managed and employed to their respective end goals using less fuel and less time than most traditional wood-fired kiln designs.
That brings us back to my pile of bricks. Situated within the city limits and a suburban landscape brimming with neighbors and schools and traffic (and trees), I decided that size, wood storage and the footprint of the kiln I would build needed to be guided first and foremost by consideration of its location and environment. I had no experience building or firing a train/bourry box kiln, but my research led me to conclude that this design, if any, would perhaps allow me to operate my studio in the suburbs in a sustainable and considerate fashion.
I completed construction of the kiln in January of 2018 after a two year period of research and material acquisition. I have been firing two to three times a year since then with the help of my partner and a small group of trusted and capable friends. I look forward to each making and firing cycle and look forward to the future of every other kiln I will build or encounter, bearing the knowledge that in some definable way each of those kilns contain, create and echo the stories of their time & place: Through the hands and minds of each person involved, these stacks of brick & steel paint a portrait of their place and time through the lens of their becoming and the people at their helm.