Errata Ceramic

The Footnotes, my favorite part.
1)Living with a rip roaring case of ADHD does not lead to what could be considered an ideal headspace to write an organized book. I have so many outlines and have filled in so little of what is needed. Consequently I am going to try and put together a collection of essays about Clay, about Thailand and particularly about Thai Ceramics. Necessarily it will talk about how I think, how I come up with ideas, and maybe philosophy. What I am not going to do ahead of time is worry too much about cohesion. The cohesive element is unfortunately me. I hope it will paint a picture without too much talk of the parts. But some will be necessary.

2) Challenges. There are a few big ones that have run through my life. They have taken more than a little bite out of my productivity. They also have limited “follow through”. On the other side of this, they keep my brain mixing and matching, not just learning new things but finding ways to integrate divergent areas of inquiry. I have mentioned the ADHD. I think it is very common in the visual arts, and maybe particularly in Ceramics. Part of this has to be the nature of the material. It overcomes the abstraction of representation. It is, its concrete. That it also can be concrete, a common ceramic material is just a meaningless confusion. If you squeeze a piece of clay then it already is something unique. It already has presence. When first you put paint on a canvas it is always just what it is, a just started painting. Clay is not representation but the direct action of presentation. That prefix, “re” is not there. Clay is.

I am not about to deny that you can be a great ceramist without mixing clay or glazes or even firing kilns. It certainly is true that you can. But the diversity of tasks and their widely differing needed skills keeps the ADHD brain engaged. Mixing clay is physical. And if you don’t mix, wedging or even running clay through a deairing mill is physical. Unless you make small work, at least to some extent this sort of activity can keep your upper body strong. If you regularly throw large work, then change this to “Very strong indeed”. And this can be before even getting started throwing.

Throwing pottery is an athletic vocation. You need to train muscle groups, large and small, to operate without much in the moment guidance. Keeping a pot centered, once you have basic skill on the wheel runs on autopilot. It runs on training. It involves mostly large muscle groups but relies on tactile feedback and some control of small muscle groups. Where the author Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule, we operate under the 10,000 pot rule. Although is some potteries this is better stated as the 10,000 gallon rule.

Then there is dealing with the surface. There are enough different ways to do this as there are people in the field. David Peter’s, potters in some traditional pottery villages in Japan, Mike Martino do this in a way that seems minimal. They choose a clay and type of firing so that the clay does some of the work. It never does all the work. How you finish a surface, how you fire, how you process or select the clay, these are decisions about surface. Star Pottery works is a source for options, mixing clay in small lots with minimal processing, leaving its inherent nature.
Some people take a much more maximalist approach in terms of surface. Linda Arbuckle comes to mind, as does Rosalie Wynkoop. But even in these, these people love the materials they work with, how they look, the texture, the color and even how they are applied. Just as you can buy your materials you can ignore surface, few do.
Firing. Even the people that just punch a button have to make decisions on firing. Did this firing look better than the last? is it a bit hotter? Did that soak (holding the peak temperature constant for a length of time) help the way the ware looks? Its, for most, an important part of the process and completely unlike throwing or handbuilding.
Then there is sales, promotion, packing and shipping. One friend did buyer’s markets and then shipped from his factory where he employed some workers. Some do crafts fairs. Some manage to sell from their studios. Some make copious amounts of inexpensive work. Others make a few expensive pieces that require a lot of time in the studio. But regardless, this is a very different task from the other ones.
Building, altering, repairing equipment is a part of the studio practice of many people with ADHD. For some its a chore. But if you ADHD it is yet another task, more variety. If you have ADHD such variety is a blessing.

3) I think it is the directness, the lack of abstraction that is painting, the physicality, that draws the dyslexic to the medium. I do not know that it is true, but we people clay seem to have a lot of learning disabilities among us.  I am dysgraphic. People always wonder how this is compatible with a medium that asks for details. But I manage. I gave up on neatness a long time ago. The trick is to make how you make things look intentional ( see chapter 7 b “Intendedness”)

dissassembly

As I dissassemble my calliope to move it to the scrap heap I find there is more to take apart than just the apparatus. I find myself teary eyed, and not particularly happy. Writing will probably help, although not garuanteed. (sp).
The calliope, this last couple of weeks has been the elephant in the room.I could move it with my household, but questions arise.
1. Will I have the motivation to set it back up?
2. When will I have the space to set upt?
3. If. I do set it up will I play it or do anything with it?

partially disassembled calliope

Calliope disassembly

I am reminded of my father’s two manual harpsichord. He built it and it was too big to get out of the basement,,, but just a little too big. We had to take out the banister and I think something off one of the walls. Then it weighed like an elephant. But with the help of a retired furniture mover we got it out of the basement. It played for a few months and then developed problems from warping. It was strung too tight (a frequent problem with my father’s instruments or the braceing and structure was insufficient. Then there is the poor fiting joinery. It must have been a big dissappointment. It sat around in limbo for several years and then was taken apart and salvaged. I believe that I have an instrument made from these salvaged parts that died the same death, too much tension, not enough structure.

The calliope was to be a followup to the flame throwing pipe organ. I wanted an instrument built to withstand moving, temperature changes and even a bit of water and wind. The 120 year old pipe organ was delicate. I wanted robust. I built it, its pretty robust.

While machining the parts I started having more and more trouble with my hands. I developed trigger finger in four fingers, my arthritis got much worse too. What had been fun, working on the calliope became work. Than some supremely well timed demotivational comments from my chair, cut the rest of the motivation. It stopped being a fun project and stopped being functional in any real sense. I did finish the calliope, and it has been fun somewhat having one, but continuing to deal with it seems imprudent. Time to 86 it.

People think that my art work is physical objects. Rick Newby once told me that I was a Ceramic Philosopher. I cannot say he is wrong, but I think that I use philosophy as a tool for innovation. My work is innovations in ceramics, or at least has been. For the last several years I have not been working with that gooey plastic material. I have been using its lessons, working in its mannerisms, using what I learned in clay’s schools. My lastest work uses the design lessons of functional pottery as critiqued through the bauhaus lens, but also draws on music, and other wave phenomenon. Some of my lights are influenced by Islamic tile.  I remain a clayer, just working with a different material.

Okara Dense Bread

Okara is the fiber left after squeezing soy milk from ground cooked soybeans. It is a by-product of soymilk and tofu production. In some countries in Asia it is produced in large enough quanities that it is often disposed of through burning or landfill.
I am a food experimenter and for the last year or so have occasionally been making peanut milk, made in a similar method to soy milk. I am a big fan of peanut milk. Its rich and creamy and I cannot eat cow milk. I have also been making peanut yogurt. Its spectacular, but not thick like cow milk yogurt. Its more like kefir. The peanut milk production makes peanut okara. I have been using it as the main ingredient in a yeasted bread. Its been very good, although dense.

The bread serves multiple functions. One is that its delicious. Two is that the okara, peanut or soy, is high fiber and low glycemic index. The third reason is that it is an essentially free ingredient if you were just going to throw it away anyways.

I want bread, but when I eat too much of it, and this can be two slices, I feel its affects on me. I get tired, often too tired to do anything in the middle of the day. It does not help my mood. If I really over do it I get headaches, usually the next day. For me the low glycemic index and likely the lower glycemic loading is very helpful. My bread is designed to maximize the okara and minimize the flower.

Basic recipe
2 cups peanuts or soybeans
Soak overnight replacing the water several times ( I use it on my potted plants outside.
grind the beans in water. If peanuts just press, For soy beans bring the mash to boiling and stire while maintaining temperature for 8 minutes.
Press the soy or peanut milk in a nut milk bag, or if peanuts run them through your Champion Juicer.Add a bit more water let it sit a little bit and squeeze again. Cook the soy milk before using.

Bread

Okara from 2 cups soy or peanuts.
Take 1/2 cup water and to it add 1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast. Get the yeast dissolved ,add the okara and stir it up. Sprinkle 1/3 teaspoon salt on top, 1 t coarse back pepper too.
Let it proof. It will not rise. After an hour or two mix in as much bread flour as it will take. Knead gently preserving gluten strands. Proof. Repeat proof and knead 3 times. Add 1 chopped red onion to the dough. knead, proof, then loaf. Cook at 375 for the first 20 minutes then lower the temp to 350˚F and cook until the internal temp is 208˚F .

The pepper and onions are not needed in the peanut bread. It has a great flavor to begin with. You like want something to overcome the mild flavor that comes with the soy okara. The onion and pepper really help here.

I have since this was originally posted been hooked up to a CGM. I have not tried this bread on it. But a bread where soybeans have been cooked and minimal wheat flower added seems to be much better than regular bread but not enough to remove the symtoms I associate with too high a glycemic index. My plan is to try the peanut okara bread again not that I have the meter. I prefer the peanut milk to soy milk. I tend to drink it in about 4 ounce or less quantities . I would likely turn it into yogurt again. It would be good to see what the peanut milk does by itself.

The Square Wheel, A structural look at Innovation in the ceramic arts

Where do ideas like The square potter’s wheel, and a Flame throwing pipe organ come from. An Outline for a talk at NCECA 2027. This wriiten set of nots should be considered a work in progress rather than anything finished.

An understanding of undergraduate critiques of the minimalist sculpture type known a s functional pottery. Does the rim look like it just happened or was it made the way that it is with intent? Is it loose throwing or sloppy? Was it sloppy with intent? Or better does it appear to be sloppy with intent? Is actual intent necessary for interpretation? Once it looks intentional meaning, rationale, seems there to discern.
What parts of the design have not been considered? Or what parts look as if they have not been considered?

New ideas, and all innovation happen in the same space. They flow in the space of idea not yet considered. John Gil in his Red Clay Rambler interview talks about things happening in the grey or grey area. For me, what he describes is the space between words, outside conventional definition. In my minds it is easy to segment the realms that  ideas not yet considered exist in. But these realms in some sense they are all the same. Just the same. Lets segment these.  But keep in mind that the segmentation is just a map of reality. Words are an imperfect model of reality. The map is not reality.
I have been married to Gail Busch for 45 years. We frequently have big disagreements.
Where exactly does blue end and green begin?
We each have our own color map. The colors do not change, yet our perception and ideas about them are not identical..

Outlandish, Is the outlandish seeming is sometimes indandiish?
Old English utlendisc, from ūtland (“foreign land, land abroad”) (English outland).
concentric
eccentric,,, this surely applies to this wheel.

Lets go through some of them as the relate to clay.

Tools
Tools not yet considered as appropriate for the use by you you will use them for. Examples
Sand Blaster used by Kurt Weiser
Air Chisel on glass by Janusz Walentynowicz
CinvaRam Brick Press for making pots by Louis Katz
Unusual hand tools. Student Exercise.

Materials

Materials discarded as impractical or not yet considered for the use you put them to.
Portland Cement glazes (Ceramics Monthly)
Calcium Chloride for surface decoration
Gerstley Borate as clay ingredient to promote scumming
Chunky Copper wire Oxide
Corn
Sewage Treatment Plant Ash
Discarded sludge from granite countertop cutting.
USe of Cobalt Oxide as a flux. (Ceramic MAterials Workshop)
Use of Manganese Dioxide as a flux (Basalt Ware Wedgewood)

Techniques that won’t work.
Clay on welded wire fencing
Slipcast Glass
Difficult forms

Glaze faults
Sperry platters
Crawled Shino
My student’s teapot

Absurd Amalgams.
Cutting molds with saws rather than making separate pieces. Who is the person doing this today? Is this really just a different tool application?
Urban Teapots
Is this new? Shang Dynasty Bronzes.

New ways to do old things.
Walk around the pot rather than spin the pot. THis is really an old way to do it.
Make Chrome thin Pinks with Zinc (Ceramic Materials Workshop research)

Inbetweens happen between words and concepts. There is no hard like between blue and green yet we treat them as if they are distinct. Many of the most interesting colors occur in the area where these colors approach these verbal distinctions. People that think as if colors are distinct live outside of subtle use.

But the line between function and non function is a similar line. Something pleasurable to look at serves a function. In my Uncle Bernie’s verbiage, designed to poke fun at contemporary abstract sculpture, sculpture modulates space. Paintings act as decorations for walls. The function of art is as objects of contemplation, avenues for expression. It is this line, and how we define it in Ceramics, that was the first place where I see idea as the realm where I started to innovate. What is function? What functions are we forgetting about? What do we mean by it.

What is Ceramics? Most will tell you its a class of materials. But even then it depends on who you ask. A chemist will tell you “Metal Oxides”,  an engineer will tell you materials to hold or withstand  high heat, an NCECAist might tell. you clay and glazes. Glass they might see as a grey area?

Me? I sufferer from Meglomania Ceramica, I claim it all, graphite, granite, portland cement, glass, silica gels, and yes clay.
But Ceramics is also a way or group of ways of looking at design, ways of working, a history or historys.
You, You are Ceramics. Ceramics is a community or maybe communities. I call members of this community Clayers,
How you look at Ceramics influences how you see what you can call ceramics. How you define function limits what you call functional Ceramics. Even people who are serious about making functional pottery understand this. Mark Hewitts titling a jar “umbrella holders” is a clear sign of this.

As an exercise, perhaps in absurdity, but certainly as a way to grow, to come to grips with the illusional order word definitions inflict on the world, I inflate definitions until they encompass as much of reality as I can muster. I truly am tired of the hierarchy in the arts. I refer to painting as ceramic and other pigments stuck in place by a binder. This converts those cave paintings in Lascaux and elsewhere from the craft of painting to the Art of Ceramics. The cave walls, rock, are ceramics too. Lets make sure that the art historians get their terminology straight. Shall we?

Better get to the wheel. What parts of the wheel to we just accept and live with? The stable axis. Some of us do understand that steady speed is not so necessary, that is if we throw for long on a Leach Wheel or make big things on a kick wheel. Steady speed is not needed but spinning on a stable axis never gets questioned.

Kurt

 

ntroduction to the pieces that made this happen.

I have been a conceptual artist since before I discovered clay and before I knew what a conceptual artist was. So it should come as no surprise as we look back on my over 50 years with clay with an analytic eye that even early on concept had become a central part of my work. However for me clay is visual and despite my conceptual drive, for the most part for I needed my work to also be visually engaging .

Looking back over a lifetime of clay, I have never been comfortable with the restrictions that definitions of words put on us. Early on this was the word “function”. What could we make that has no function? Why make it? Even a painting has to function. My ideas of what is “functional ceramics” has grown over the years. I have made ceramic signs, door stops, brick, and counter weights. I have tried to make them all beautiful.

What is “ceramics”. We have the classic clayer definition, things made with clay, but then there is the chemists definition and the engineers definition. Suffering from “meglomaniacal ceramic” I count all of them, cement, rock, graphite, clay , glass and all ceramic based electronics and all art referencing them as part of my media.

We are left out of Art History for the most part. That is because Art History mostly surrounds Painting History. We, clayers, have a shared history that can be seen as separate. Clay is that history. We have processes, aesthetics, materials, and tools. They are ceramic. We are a community. Suppliers, collectors, makers of toilets and brick, the public that comes to our openings are part of us. NCECA is ceramic. We are clay. I use the word “Clayers” for this community. Its not inclusive enough for 2026, I am considering dropping Clayers for Ceracats.

Consequently I have made paintings that I see as clay. Some were painted with ceramic pigments suspended in oil. They are in some ways direct descendants of some of those early ceramic objects, the earthen pigmented paintings on the cave walls in Lascaux. But because my painting of a burner safety system is ceramic subject mattter, it is ceramics. It was not done using ceramic pigments. But I used a torch to alter its coloration. And then there is its subject matter. Clay.

Kilns were early subjects for me to make. They are vessels most often made of clay. The flame throwing pipe organ was a stretch, but I used a ceramic fiber kiln as the ignitor when in Kansas City. At the Archie Bray and the test performance at The Island University the kiln was made of actual clay.

We are blessed with a media with lots of aspects to it. Tool innvoation is part of clay. Whether this is the Giffin Grip, the Train Kiln, the Noborigama, this innovation is part of us.

Innovation often seems to move a particular part of the media forward. Usually when we use that word, we describe new things that exist outside the realm of refinement. Usually innovation happens in the inbetweens; between ideas and concepts, between fields, between tools, or outside of arbitrary limitation. Refinement in my head raises the pinnecle . Innovation broadens the base.

Going to school in Kansas City at The Art Institute in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s there was a lot of critiquing of functional pottery. When I became a teacher it was important for me to understand what was happening in those critques, how they were organized. What were the teachers looking for? A main priniciple of the Baus Haus was that “Every part of a design should be considered”. For me, this is close to truth. I think that “Every part of a design should look as it was considered.” You do not have to actually have considered it in order for it to be a success. Critiques of pots in Kansas City looked for the unconsidered or ilconsidered parts of the pot. They pointed them out. Sometheys they came with suggestions.

This principle, “what has not been considered” is a mirror of how I look at innovation. I often ask, What is unchanging, and how can I change it. Round pots are turned oval. Bernard Leach gives directions for this in “A Potter’s Book”. But the reason for round is the stable axis of the wheel. It just about begs for fiddling with, for play, for innovation, for consideration.

Ham Radio
I will not bore you with radio stuff, but Pete Juliano a radio homebrewer says, “When you know stuff you can do stuff”. He designs and builds radios. They are to my mind sculptures. Each one is different but expressive, innovative, interesting. He is amazing.

Early on I made it my business to know stuff. Really it was as much as I could. I had read every ceramics book I could get my hands on by the time I entered college. I was not a student who earned good grades, but it would be a mistake to think that my Chemistry, Physics, or Math classes went in one ear, got tested and then out the other. I scoured the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics for applicable information. This learning has been very helpful. I have never stopped learning. Sometimes now I have to relearn things I have forgotten. I am thankful that relearning is still faster than learning the first time. I am currently working on radio electronics. Really understanding complex impedances is difficult, the Smith Chart can seem diabolically tough. I have no idea how it will encorporate into ceramics. Almost everything else has.

But then there is “How to Do Stuff”. If you can’t build the thing, you might not be able to to have it. I have learned how to put stuff together. Hand skills, assembly, machining, building electronics, they really are knowing stuff also.

Sometime around 2011 I got involved with an easy to learn and use microcontroller platform called Arduino. It rapidly inserted itself into my work. Arduino is meant as a development platform for microcontrollers and can be used to take inputs, like switchs, sensors, clocks and use them to determine outputs like motors, lights, sounds, text. I used it for remote controlled brick. But mostly it was just and educational platform for me. I taught students to use them to control lights, sound, motion and take inputs.

I can throw nice flower petal like bowls by shaking my hands as I throw. Sometime in the mid 1990’s I built a wheel that does the shaking for you. The wheel head goes up and down 5 times a revolution. You can throw cylinders on it but it shakes almost any other form apart. Its an interesting gimmic. It owes its life partly to Ralph Cheifo’s (sp) reciprocating potter’s wheel. I got the idea to put a cam on a pivotable wheel shaft with flat faces and built a quick prototype square wheel. The pivot was not in the right place but my limited test with it showed me that what I was thinking was possible. It just needed work. About 20 years later I built a wheel with the pivot on another axis but parallel to the wheel axis. The wheel needed a drive mechanism that could handle the piviot. I decided on a small gear motor that I could move with the wheel head. It was simple. I needed something to control its speed, I used the Arduino microcontroller.

Which direction do you throw in? Some like clockwise, some counterclockwise. A few can throw in both directions. This wheel has a capability of going for a certain amount of time clockwise, and then a certain amount of time counterclockwise. You can set the direction, the speed, and a pause, and then another direction, speed and pause, alternating back and forth until you turn it off. So long as there is significant forward movement each cycle its not that hard to throw on.

The multiside mechanism works on a cam, really a set of carriage bolts mounted on the rim of the wheel head, and a rubbing block. The return is on a set of springs. Because of the arrangement of the 12 carriage bolts you can easily make semetrical pots with 12 sides, 6 sides, 4 sides, and theoretically 3 sides. As of this writing I have not tried the three sided setting. I am scared of it. 4 sides was difficult. If you want information on the wheel feel free to contact me or visit my square wheel resource page on my wiki at:
Square wheel online resources: https://louiskatz.net/w/pmwiki.php?n=Main.NCECA2027ResourcesForSquareWheel

รายงานเรื่องครก

2534 24 มิถุนายน เวลา 15:00 น. วันก่อนวันแต่งงาน ผมไปที่ร้านขายของชำเอเชีย ผมซื้อครกและสากแบบไทย มีการตกแต่งด้วยน้ำดินสี ( slip) รูปทรงของมันไม่สมมาตรเสียทีเดียว ผิวด้านนอกเคลือบด้วยสีน้ำผึ้ง ( Honey colored glaze over the slip) มี ขี้เถ้าไม้ติดอยู่กับเคลือบนั้น มันคือมินเก (Mingei) ของแท้ Mingei เป็นคำภาษาญี่ปุ่น ซึ่งแปลเป็นภาษาอังกฤษว่า “งานหัตถกรรมพื้นบ้าน” (folk craft)คำนี้ถูกใช้ในลักษณะที่แยกออกจากศิลปะอย่างชัดเจนคำนี้ถูกใช้ในลักษณะที่แยกออกจากศิลปะอย่างชัดเจน “มิงเกอิ” (Mingei 民芸) หมายถึงสิ่งที่เรียนรู้จากพ่อแม่หรือช่างฝีมือคนอื่น ไม่ใช่เรียนรู้จากโรงเรียนหรือวิทยาลัย ครกมีสติกเกอร์เล็กๆ ติดอยู่ว่า “Made in Thailand” ตอนนั้นผมไม่รู้จักคนไทยเลย ยังไม่สนใจประเทศไทย แต่คิดว่าครกนั้นสวยงาม

มันเป็นของขวัญสำหรับเกลและตัวผมเองในวันก่อนที่เราจะแต่งงานกัน มะละกอบ็อกบ็อก
ครกนั้นมาจากจังหวัดราชบุรี ผมคิดว่ามันพิเศษ สำหรับคนไทยมันเป็นเรื่องธรรมด ผมมีความสนใจในสิ่งเรียบง่าย สิ่งที่พบเห็นได้ในชีวิตประจำวัน สิ่งของราคาไม่แพง และงานหัตถกรรมพื้นบ้านอยู่แล้ว มันคือความงดงามแห่งความพอเพียง มันเป็นครกและสากแบบไทยชุดแรกที่ผมเคยเห็น และเป็นเพียงชุดเดียวที่ฉันเคยเห็นจนกระทั่งได้มาเยือนประเทศไทยในปี  2531ค.ศ. 1988 . แต่ที่ร้านมีโอ่งมังกรอยู่หลาย
นี่คือเรื่องราวของถนนหนทางและการคมนาคมขนส่ง ค่าจ้างและแรงงานหลายสิ่งในเรียงความนี้เป็นเพียงความคิด แนวคิด และทฤษฎีเท่านั้น ในช่วงเวลาที่เรากลับมายังสหรัฐอเมริกาเมื่อปี ค.ศ. 1989 นั้น มีครกจากปากเกร็ดวางจำหน่ายอยู่ในร้านขายของชำเอเชีย ค่าแรง ดินเหนียว และฟืนยังคงมีราคาถูกบนเกาะเกร็ด ฉันคิดว่าค่าแรงในราชบุรีเริ่มสูงขึ้น ในขณะที่พวกเขาส่งออกโอ่งมังกรไปทั่วโลก แต่ไม่นานหลังจากกลับมายังสหรัฐอเมริกา ก็เริ่มมีการเปลี่ยนมาใช้ครกดินเผาด่านเกวียนแทนครกดินเผาเกาะเกร็ด ตอนที่ฉันไปเยือนเกาะแห่งนั้น ผู้คนบอกว่าที่ดินมีราคาแพง ดินเหนียวก็แพง เชื้อเพลิงก็แพง แต่ปูนก่อกลับมีราคาถูก ภายในปี ค.ศ. ~1994 การผลิตครกบนเกาะเกร็ดได้ยุติลงเป็นส่วนใหญ่ ส่วนใหญ่ที่ผมเห็นในสหรัฐอเมริกาคือครกจากด่านเกวียนและอุบลราชธานี ในปี ค.ศ. 1989 สภาพถนนได้รับการปรับปรุงให้ดีขึ้นมาก และต้นทุนค่าแรงในบริเวณใกล้กรุงเทพฯ ก็ปรับตัวสูงขึ้น
ช่วงปี ค.ศ. 1994–1997 ถือเป็นยุคทองของ Dankwian Ceramics โดยมีการส่งออกสินค้าประเภทเครื่องปั้นดินเผาในปริมาณมากเต็มตู้คอนเทนเนอร์อยู่หลายครั้งต่อสัปดาห์ครกจากด่านเกวียนมีราคาถูกเกินไป ในขณะที่ค่าแรงนั้นมีมูลค่าสูง ด่านเกวียนจึงเริ่มจำหน่ายครกที่ผลิตในจังหวัดอุบลราชธานี  อุบลราชธานีกลายเป็นแหล่งจำหน่ายครกและสากในราคาประหยัด ทุกวันนี้พวกเขาก็ยังคงเป็นสถานที่ที่ใช่ ก็เป็นเรื่องเดิมๆ นั่นแหละ ถนนหนทางดีขึ้น และค่าแรงในด่านเกวียนก็แพงขึ้น แต่อุบลพ็อตเทอรี่ส์ก็มีประสิทธิภาพสูงขึ้นมากเช่นกัน

ในปี ค.ศ. 1989 เกิดน้ำท่วมครั้งใหญ่ในภาคใต้ของประเทศไทย และมีเหตุดินถล่ม ส่งผลให้มีผู้เสียชีวิตจำนวนมาก เหตุการณ์ดินถล่มมีสาเหตุมาจากการตัดไม้ทำลายป่า รัฐบาลจึงสั่งระงับการตัดไม้ทั้งหมด ฟืนมีราคาแพงมาก
ที่ด่านเกวียน พวกเขาเริ่มเผายางรถยนต์เก่าและทดลองใช้น้ำมันเครื่องที่ผ่านการใช้งานแล้ว
ผู้ใหญ่บ้านหมู่บ้านเครื่องปั้นดินเผาในอุบลฯถามผมว่าพวกเขาจะเติมอะไรลงไปในดินเหนียวของอุบลฯ ได้บ้าง เพื่อให้สามารถเผาที่อุณหภูมิต่ำลงได้ ฉันบอกให้ทำเคลือบเงา เกลือ ภาษาไทยของฉันแย่มาก พวกเขาพูดว่า “เกลือไม่เผา” แต่ผู้ใหญ่บ้านมีหนังสือชื่อ “Ceramics: A Potter’s Handbook” ของ Glen Nelson ซึ่งมีการกล่าวถึงการเคลือบเกลือ (salt glaze)
ตอนที่ผมกลับมาที่ด่านเกวียน วิศวกรชาวไทยคนหนึ่งแวะเข้ามาหา เราได้พูดคุยกันเรื่องเชื้อเพลิงและหมู่บ้านด่านเกวียน จากนั้นเราก็คุยกันถึงเรื่องอุบลฯฉันเล่าเรื่องการเคลือบด้วยเกลือ (salt glaze) ให้เขาฟัง แล้วเขาก็บอกว่าบางทีเขาอาจจะอธิบายเรื่องนี้ให้พวกเขาฟังได้ การเคลือบด้วยเกลือทำให้ได้ผิวหน้าที่แข็งแกร่งขึ้นที่อุณหภูมิต่ำกว่า ไม่กี่ปีหลังจากกลับมายังสหรัฐอเมริกา ก็เริ่มมีครกเคลือบเกลือจากอุบลราชธานีวางจำหน่ายตามร้านขายสินค้าเอเชีย

คุณภาพ: ด้านภาพและด้านเทคนิค
รสชาติดี แต่ก้นบาง ปัจจุบัน ครกที่มีคุณภาพดีที่สุดมาจากบ้านโพนบก อำเภอโพนพิสัย หรือจากอำเภอท่าอุเทน จังหวัดนครพนม 
แม่ค้ามืออาชีพส่วนใหญ่ที่ขายส้มตำตามริมทางมักใช้ครกไม้หรือไม่ก็ครกที่ผลิตในอำเภอโพนพิสัย 
โดยทั่วไปแล้ว นครกที่จุดไฟด้วยความร้อนสูงกว่าจะใช้งานได้นานกว่า ฉันคิดว่าเหตุผลส่วนหนึ่งที่ทำให้ครกจากโพนพิสัยมีคุณภาพดีกว่า ก็เพราะมีฟืนมากกว่า ในความคิดของผมครกที่มีคุณภาพดีที่สุดคือครกจากเกาะเกร็ด เพราะผ่านการเผาด้วยความร้อนสูงมาก อีกทั้งยังมีขอบที่หนาและหนักที่สุด รวมถึง ก้นครกที่หนาที่สุดด้วย ครกราชบุรีก็มีเนื้อดินที่แข็งแกร่งเช่นเดียวกัน แต่ส่วนขอบปากและฐานนั้นไม่ได้หนาหนักเท่ากับครกเกาะเกร็ด ครกจากท่าอุเทนทำขึ้นโดยใช้แม่พิมพ์ ซึ่งรูปทรงแบบนี้ไม่ใช่สไตล์ที่ฉันชอบเท่าไรนัก แต่เนื้อดินนั้นสวยงามทีเดียว
หากต้องการส้มตำรสเลิศ คุณต้องใช้ครกจากด่านเกวียน

 




 







 

When You Know Stuff

“When you know stuff you can do stuff”. This is a quote from a very prolific ham radio homebrewer, Pete Juliana, callsign N6QW. It is possible that he has built more homemade transceivers of unique designs than anyone else.

In high school I read a lot of books and skimmed dozens of others. In total I believe that this was more than 100 books. Most were from The Detroit Public Library but also included my local library, my school library, and a bunch of books I bought with money earned from singing.

I tended towards books that were technical but not at the level of Engineering. Although I did take some engineering books home to look through.

This voracious appetite for ceramic reading did not stop until the late 1970’s. When at the Archie Bray Foundation visiting I read through everything I could in the library and skimmed many other books. What I learned in that library helped me be successful at many things a few of which I can track.

But it is not just books that have value to read. Instruction manuals for kilns have a lot of important information. The Orton Foundations literature on temperature, cones, and other measurement devices is very helpful. Omega Engineering used to have a product application book that had a bunch of basic knowledge on thermocouples that I have found useful.

The AP Green book on bricks was a great read. It informed how I built kiln walls. There was something called The Gas Consumption Handbook that I enjoyed.

These days of instant information people love to ask questions online. The amount of laziness and lack of reading is palpable. Page 32 of the latest Skutt Manual has the Error codes. Before you ask a question here you should at least have the courtesy to check the manual.

This does not mean that I won’t answer these questions that should be easy to find answers to. Nor does it mean that sometimes things don’t fall through the crack of our acquisition of knowledge.

But when you know stuff you can do stuff. Most of my new ideas require knowledge in order for me to evaluate them and then to implement them. In Studio Ceramics a good place to start is a basic textbook as it can provide a framework for further knowledge and gets you started with a broad understanding. I suggest Nelson’s “Ceramics: A Potter’s Handbook” any edition. The pictures are better in the newer additions. They can be found for less than $10.




A Guide to Combustion for Clayers

Clay workers usually heat things up. There are exceptions, but they really are exceptional uses. In order to fully understand our processes we have to understand how things combust and what biproducts this combustion produces and at what temperatures. 

The players:
Oil, fossil or vegetable. I suppose animal oil as well.
Coal
Charcoal will be handled under wood as will sawdust
Natural Gas Methane
Propane

This paper will not be fully footnoted if it is footnoted at all. 
In order to understand combustion you really have to know something about how molecules are bonded together. Molecular bonds hold cellulose molecules together and also hold methane and propane together. Methane holds four hydrogen atoms to one carbon atom, CH4 . In order for methane to burn you have to add enough energy into the system to break the bonds between the atoms so that they can recombine to form new compounds that are more tightly bound together. Because they are more tightly bound together this releases heat. So it takes heat to release more. 

When you heat up organics bonds break. Long molecules like cellulose become shorter. Some of these shorter elements recombine to form new compounds. At low temperatures these generally do not break far enough to then burn to carbon dioxide and water vapor, although there can be some We get mostly other organic compounds. 
Initial heating up to 200˚C produces acetic and formic acid, and perhaps a small amount of carbon dioxide, glyoxal and water. Glyoxal is a dialdehyde. What happens in the next temperature zone  200˚C -280˚C is similar but with possibly a bit of carbon monoxide formed. So far the reactions are endothermic. The absorb energy. They do not release heat. 
Above 280˚C the reactions become exothermic, they release heat. You get carbon monoxide and dioxide, acetic and formic acids, formaldehyde, water vapor, methanol and hydrogen. There is also some vaporized tar.  If you hold a piece of wood at 400˚C by the time the temp has reached the center of the wood it will have stopped smoking. 

Your nose is able to detect aldehydes in very small concentrations. To my nose, most bisque kilns if the clay is not quite pure, smell like dirty vanilla. Vanilla is another aldehyde. There are some quite nasty aldehydes, formaldehyde being a notable one. acetaldehyde, and acrolein are others  It is smart to limit how much of these chemicals you breath. They can cause oxidative stress and DNA damage. Vent your indoor kilns. Its smart.

The organic acids are hard on the metals surrounding your kilns. They can eat metal roofs above kilns, remove zinc coatings,but first they generally rot the band of your kiln lid. You want these to leave your kiln as soon as possible so keep a top spy open at least before red heat, and to protect your indoor space,,,
Vent your kiln. 

Its not like you smell your kiln once and fall over dead. These chemicals are also produced by candles, incense, campfires. Gas kitchen stoves produce formaldehyde according to recent studies, but also benzene and other hazardous chemicals. These chemicals are part of the issue with cigarette smoke that makes it so carcinogenic. 

Its easiest to just look at one kind of fuel, but unless we are talking about hydrogen gas as fuel the basic principles are all the same. I like using methane, the main constiutent of natural gas that is delivered in pipes from central gas plants in the US. Methane mentioned above is CH4. Heated with oxygen it burns. If there is enough oxygen then most of what you get is CO2, carbon dioxide and H2O, water in vapor form. While a net heat is produced when the carbon and the hydrogen in CH combine with oxygen, there are two places in the process that produce losses. . One is the energy it takes to break the bonds between the carbon and hydrogen. The second is that the water that occurs is in vapor form. When it leaves the kiln and cools it condenses releasing heat as it condensces. Since it started as gases this is not really a loss in some senses but if you could condense the gas in the kiln it would release heat. 

 

Medium Scale Brick Production

Dear Louise,
On my trips to Thailand from 1988 until 2026 I often visited brick making companies. These varied in scale from single family brick makers to medium scale factories running several scove kilns.Mostly what I was were medium scale factories. In Nakorn Ratchasima they moved some. They had little infrastructure other than some open wall structures with metal roofs and sometimes some large cement vats the size of swimming pools.
Thai builders in general do not need the same thing from brick that we need in the United States. Brick are almost never used structurally. They are used as fill between reinforced concrete posts and beams on exterior walls. It also, for all intents and purposes, does not freeze in Thailand. This allows softer brick to be used that is fired lower, and is more porous. These brick have a lower tensile and compressive strength. They also require less fuel that denser brick.
Buildings in Thailand that use brick are generally stuccoed outside and often inside. Consequently the brick can be relatively crude.Per cubic foot installed they are cheaper than concrete or there would be no demand.

The brick are fired in scoves, loose stacks of brick with space for fuel between the brick. The first few layers on the ground are made of already fired brick, and an outside wall of fired brick is stacked around the raw brick being fired. In Thailand the fuel used is rice husks. They are agricultural waste. The compost very slowly and are low in nutrients. The burnt husks are almost 100% silica. Because of their composition and low soluble salt content they make an excellend addition to the clay as temper or grog. The temper reduces shrinkage and the resulting cracking and make the raw brick more porous. The porousity allows the brick to dry faster and because the pores allow steam to escape before pressure can build much, allows the brick to fired faster. It also gets rid of the ash. The ash is generally not burnt white and has some residual carbon. This adds a small amount of fuel to the fire. I suspect that it is not significant.
The clay mixing operations does vary some, but mostly what I have seen is a vat, really better described as a cement swimming pool filled with alternating layers of clay and ash that has water added as it is filled. After slaking and aging it is dug out and but into a brick extruding pug mill.

It was truly amazing for me to see working scove kilns in both the brick factories and the stove factories. I had always bee interested in scove kilns and about 5 years before going to Thailand I built a scove brick kiln. I was in graduate school and built this small kiln on a cart with wheels and rolled it into the galler for an exhibition.

Stove Production in Korat in 1988-1999

Stove Production in Korat in 1988-1999

Over the years I have visited a few charcoal burning kitchen stove factories. These are small things that you can set one pot on. They burn charcoal. In 1988 a large proportion of kitchens still used them. Even in 2026 a kitchen with a gas stove needing an extra “burner” might throw something on the charcoal stove. They are still used for several types of grilling หมูกระทะ is one. Its been called Korean Barbeque at  times. There are restaurants that specialize in it and sometimes places that deliver burning stoves with all the fixings to your residence.

The factories have all employed over 10 people with many performing specialized jobs. I have seen two styles made, the USAID design built on an internal mold, and the standard design built inside an external mold. In Korat they used the external mold. The internal mold is used in Khon Kaen. There are likely factories in most populous provinces.

The clay is a local orange clay and it is highly tempered with partially burnt rice hull ash. The rice hulls are used as fuel for the firing so there is ample supply and the carbonized but not fully burnt ash that gets included in the body just adds a bit of fuel to stack and burns out leaving voids, slowing the progression of thermal shock induced cracks.

The clay is slaked and then mixed and dried with rice hull ash. The mix is slightly thixotropic. This is also true of Baan Maaw clay and I attribute it to potassium salts in the rice hull ash. Although small percentage wise it does not take much to change rheology of clay and water mixes. The mixers were built with surplus motor vehicle motors and transmissions using old differentials from truck and car rear axles. The mixers in these factories are vertical mixers with a central slow speed blade. Generally there is an outlet door at the bottom that is opened after the mix is sufficiently mixed.

The clay is pressed into the external mold and smoothed and a ridge for the grate is added. The object is popped out of the mold, a hole added to the bottom for air and three lozenge shapes are cut from the rim forming a tripod for a wok or other pot to sit on.

After drying the stove internals are stacked rim down in a large scove with brick sides. The top is covered with pierced ceramic disks to hold coal off the floor of the stove and the spaces between the stoves are filled with rice hulls. It is lit and allowed to burn down. I do not know how many days this takes.

The fired stove interiors are then packed into metal containers made of steel “tin” can misprints and excess and the space between the interior and the can is filled and tamped with a mix of ash, cement and maybe some clay and sand. The top of the tamped mix is finished with a mix containing more cement. Given how they look I expect a similar finishing technique is used in the Baan Maaw Mahasarakham stove manufacture.

Baan Maaw Mahasarakham

Baan Maaw village, Meuang Mahasarakham District, Mahasarakham province, Thailand kingdom Sometimes this village is refered to as Baan Pan Maaw บ้านปั่นหม้อ, rather than Pot Village this is Village [where] Pots [are] Formed. Pan ปั่น can mean spun.  Its odd as the pots are mostly handbuilt. I wonder, but do not know if the longer name for the village is newer, or not really used.  But pottery (เครื่องปั้นดินเผา) is named spun clay, so it fits.


Maaw (หม้อ), means “pot” as in pottery. Baan (บ้าน) means house. A village is a muu baan (หมู่บ้าน). The first part of this, “muu” (หมู่) usually refers to a group of houses or a village. Mail addresses often are associated with a muu, such as Muu 4 Dankwian. That is a group of houses in an amphoe or district or in a muubaan. These muu are associated with how a mailman does his job. Its easy to be confused. The meanings are close. 

Thailand
Provinces – Changwat
District – Amphoe 
Subdistrict – Tambon
Village or Hamlet – Muubaan
Community (smaller area, like a sudivision in the US sort of) – Chumchom
Its more complicated than that. Large cities within provinces are generally referred to as Amphoe Mueang
maybe this needs clarification or deletion. 
But Baan Maaw is a village  with a clear  grouping away from other villages. The pots that they made were almost exclusively 8 liter or so, porous water cooling jars. They all have a stippled band that appears decorative just above the belly, the widest part, a broad rim and a lid. They are bonfire fired to about 760˚C or 1400˚F. This temperature is a guess based on the look of the fire. It could be as much 200 degrees fahrenheit lower. The pots are unglazed, although more recently (2014) some were being coated in tree resin when hot for a black and shiny finish, and some have been being treated with the Dankwian Antique Finish technique (discussed in the section on Dankwian Village). 
The clay, last time I. saw it being delivered to the village came by 2 wheel cart and was in 25cm cubes, (about 10 inches). It was cut from the ground wet with a flat shovel. I did not watch it being prepared. It is a sticky clay, and from the ground a light grey color. It bears no resemblance to Dankwian clay other than being fairly sticky. 
The clay is mixed with grog, or if you prefer chamotte, made with a novel technique. The grog, the only time I saw the beginning of the production, was made with mud from the bottom of the local reservoir Loeng Pan Maaw เลิงปั้นหม้อ . Loeng เลิง means marsh or swamp. The Loeng near Baan Maaw I believe was excavated to get fill and create a bigger reservoir. It appears to be much larger now (2014) than I remember it being in 1989. The mud is mixed with copious amounts of rice hulls to make ~ 15 centimeter balls, roughly six inches. The balls have a 2.5 cm diameter hole that goes in towards the center.  This creates an object that burns like very low grade charcoal briquettes.
Usually these are piled canonball style over some firewood in a 6 by six grid and about 5 layers high.. They are burned to a temperature similar to the temperature at which the pots are fired but probably a little lower. There is so little clay in these that they can easily be crushed with a persons weight and a shoe. It takes at least a few hours to burn and is not carefully attended as it does. 
Rice hulls are near perfect for this use. They are agricultural waste. They were traditionally burned to eliminate pests. While they can be added to soil, they are slow to decompose and light so they do not stay in place in flooded rice fields. Partially burned rice hull is a more suitable soil ammendment in rice fields. Consequently this use if effectively carbon neutral. They would likely be burned anyways. 
Rice hull ash is almost entirely silica. The two analyses I have show it as 96% silica, 1% alumina and less than 2% alkali metal and alkaline earths. The alkali metals and alkaline earths are soluble and some will end up in solution in the clay and alter the working properties. But this low amount is not enough to cause big problems. I believe that it at least contributes to the thixotropic feel of Baan Maaw clay. Thixatropy is the property of a material where with stirring or manipulation it becomes more fluid or flexible. 
Silica can be added to a clay in large percents, and quartz sand, another way to get silica, is sometimes added to clays to replace or instead of grog. But where the silica in quartz is crystyalline, the silica in rice hulls is amporphous. Quartz rapidly increases in size just above red heat, something potters call Quartz Inversion, and the size change can cause cracking in pottery. Amorphous silica does not exhibit this phase change, and therefore is safer as an addition to clay. It does not cause cracks. 
The silt that holds the rice hull balls together fires into a very porous structure with lots of sharp texture. That texture holds onto clay well. The quality of grog is related to how open the texture is and how sharp. Better grog makes stronger clay. Rounded smooth particals weaken a clay body both in the raw and fired states. I believe that this grog significantly adds to the amazing strength of the raw clay pots.It also, do to its open porous nature, makes fast firing easier to accomplish without explosions. 
The pots are started with a rolled cylinder process achieved with a stick about the diameter of a broom stick. The cylinders, maybe about 18 inches tall are place on damp fabric on one end and formed slightly by a hand placed on the inside in opposition to one on the outside. The pot is turned on the damp fabric. 
After this initial forming and a small amount of drying, it is placed on a stump and paddled into a larger form. The rim is thrown, not by spinning the pot but by walking around the pot quickly. The body of the pot still has a hole in the bottom from the cylinder rolling process. After setting to dry a little more the bottom is paddled closed. The form is then placed inside an old pot shoulder section, it having an appropriate curve and allowed to dry a little more. The shape is finished by paddling one or two more times. 
During the first part of drying, I think of it as the wet stage, as the water dries the particles of clay move closer together and the form shrinks. As this stage ends the clay gets much less maleable. In English people call this “leather hard”. This appears to be because at this stage it can be tooled like leather.But at this stage small voids form. They dissapear as the clay vitrifies, but the water that used to fill up these voids dries out. Its my theory that paddling removes some of these voids and also aligns flat clay platelets parallel to the surface of the pot. I have no great evidence of this.But the quality of the grog, and the paddling in Baan Maaw  Mahasarakham and other such potteries results in greenware (unfired ware) that is remarkably strong. The fired was is quite strong too, especially considering the firing temperature. 

Firing takes place in the afternoon when the sun is strong and the temperature hot. I believe that this is to reduce explosions caused by hygroscopically held water. I have never seen an exploded pot in Baan Maaw. I have only witness firings during the hot season.

The pots are fired “Bonfire” style. There is a lot of variation in bonfire firings but the firings here resemble some in other countries. There is a bed of thin sticks roughly 1 -2 inches in diameter placed up from the ground on roughly 4 inch tall fired ceramic props. This allows air under the bed early in the firing. Two layers of pots are placed on the stick bed. The first is placed rim down with six pots on each side of the square stack. So the grid of the first layer is 6X6 or 36 pots. The second layer has pots placed with rims up at about 60 degrees from directly vertical in a 5X5 grid for 25 pots. Lids are placed between the pots.The total stack holds about 61 pots. 

The stack is covered by rice straw and lit on fire. It all is engulfed in flame in the first few minutes. After a few minutes a second layer of straw is added. The access to air around the outside is managed and the outside pots are checked by color for how well fired they are. Additional straw is added until no longer necessary. The entire firing takes about 1 hour.

There are products other than the water jars that are produced in the village. One is rice cooking pots. These are small earthenware vessels meant for a few uses on top of a charcoal stove. Charcoal stoves are also produced in the village. There is a small amount of sculpture produced in the village. 

The charcoal stove design is an outgrowth of a USAID development project from before 1988. At the time a vast amount of wood was being turned into charcoal for day to day cooking in the villages. Besides being an agent of deforestation, pollution and environmental damage it was an expensive way to cook. The stoves were very inefficient. 

A newer project to produce stoves resulted in the Tao Mahasethee เตามหาเศรษฐี stove or “Billionaire Stove”. Because of the name when they show up in the press they are immediately ridiculed. Online posts about charcoal stoves in Thailand often ignore the earlier work.  ( see Stove Production in Korat)

 



What they make
Process,
progressive paddling and strength
Firing Rice Straw
Small wood
Stands

materials
Grog Balls

Thixotropy?

Market shift