Germany 2010 Part I

Linda flew to Germany in September, 2010 to attend the “1st European Woodfire Conference” which was held in the medieval Brollin Castle at Fahrenwalde north of Berlin close to the border of Poland.

250 people from 25 countries attended. Most all the buildings of the castle were used for the 4 day conference.

The building in front was the cafe and the building at the back was the dormitory for 250 sleepers. They also provided facilities for those attendees who brought their own camping equipment.

The medieval buildings have stood the test of time being made of dense wood beams and stone. This is the other side of the building used as the dormitory.

Exhibitions of pottery were set up in some of the huge inspiring spaces in the old buildings. Shown here is the attendees’ exhibit as each person brought one piece for this show.

There were lectures and workshop demonstrations by international artists like Paul Davis from Australia shown here working on the wheel.

The conference was all about wood firing pottery broken into 4 sub categories: the environment; trends and research; education and the aesthetics of wood firing. Pictured here is a wood burning kiln on a trailer.

The kiln was designed and built in Poland and was one of many kilns fired for demonstration purposes. Potters seem always to be attracted by fire.

Another kiln for demonstration and discussion was the “Phoenix Kiln. It was also portable and was wood and salt fired.

These women from Germany build these kilns with children. It can be made quite quickly as it is made of paper mache. The children help build and decorate the kiln, make small pots and fire them using wood.

This is one of the kilns produced in the ‘kiln building’ competition. The groups each had to design and build a wood firing kiln.

The kilns also had to fired as that was part of the competition. Janet Mansfield (Australia) as one of the judges is checking out the process.

The wood firing of the kilns lasted throughout the night.

As the firing was part of the competition the judges also had to be on watch.

This was the eventual winner.

This was the start of the ‘Raku Kiln Building Workshop’. The kilns were built from metal garbage cans purchased from IKEA.

Hinges, handles and stove pipes were attached and openings were cut into the bottom of the cans for stoking. The workshop ended with the firing of the kilns.

One of the most interesting demonstrations was the ‘wood and ash test’. 10 identical wood burning kilns were built head to tail. Volunteer groups of pottery students produced 10 identical sets of pottery and placed them in the kilns . .

. . in the exact same position. The kilns were bricked-in and chimneys were then added.

The purpose was to fire the identical kilns, each with identical pots inside, identically with different wood in each kiln to test both the colour and the amount of ash remaining. The student groups are preparing the wood.

The students stayed up all night firing and trying to put the same amount of wood in each kiln at the same time.

Here the kilns are un-bricked and the results are viewed.

Interestingly, the 2 woods showing the nicest colour results are Pine and Fir which are the woods mostly commonly used here in BC for wood firing.

Each day ended around a campfire with lots of music, singing and chatting with old and new friends. The next morning they packed up and started out on a week-long tour of pottery studios around southern Germany. The Road Tour.