Birthing Clay

CONNECTIONS | by CELESTE TELL

MY FRIEND CAROLYN SAID IT IS LIKE BIRTHING A BABY. Standing by the huge Thai-style Anagama wood-fired kiln that her husband Jim Stout built on Lopez Island in Washington State, we were helping with Jim’s annual kiln firing, which has become a community happening.

© JIM STOUT

The huge kiln even has a shape reminiscent of a pregnant woman. Made of bricks and steel and stucco, it takes on a life of its own as the temperature starts to rise. Expanding as the heat rises, bellowing smoke out the chimney, quieting as the hot ashes settle on the works of clay inside, we cycle with the kiln through its process over an intense 48 hours.

The process is earthy and physical, like childbirth. And like childbirth it has an organic momentum, and no two firings are exactly the same, even in the same kiln. Different types of wood. Different weather. What’s the temperature? More wood. Less wood. Morning shift. Afternoon. Evening under the stars. Making it through those dreaded-yet-peaceful graveyard shifts.

There is something primal about the fire, the heat, the way we gather around it. Forging physical changes to the clay inside and fusing we humans closer to each other and to the earth. Its pull irresistible. From raw clay, human creativity, fuel and heat: something new.

Somewhere along the line, in all our modernity and innovation, it feels like we’ve lost touch with where things come from. How we make things. But experiencing the firing provides a visceral connection to how things are made. It’s a primal human need. Like heat. Like fire. Like birth.