MAY 31, 2018 // 9
CLOSE TO HOME
RICHARD ROWLAND FIRES UP NEW
DRAGON KILN FOR SOUP BOWL EVENT
By DAVID CAMPICHE
FOR COAST WEEKEND
L
ife is a grab bag of ramped-up
emotion at three o’clock in the
morning. The ghost moon dangles
over Tucker Creek in the foothills of
Astoria. And the fire in the kiln is now
2,000 degrees and rising with flames that
whirl and twist, while artisans throw in
armloads of firewood — just like people
did, say, 4,000 years ago, in Korea, China
or Japan.
Potters chant or pray or talk quietly
among themselves, or simply shut their
mouths and let the heat charge up the
belly of the dragon and into the chimney
until it rendezvous with the stars.
Welcome to the Astoria Dragon Kiln,
Richard Rowland’s new Anagama-style
kiln. Welcome to four years’ labor and
thousands of fire bricks and unmeasur-
able dreams and aspirations. Welcome to
the potter’s world.
The potters are hard at work for the
once-a-year collaboration and donation
of more than 400 clay soup bowls to
The Harbor in Astoria and the Tillamook
County Women’s Resource Center, or-
ganizations that support survivors of do-
mestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking.
The Harbor’s event “Soup Bowl 2018:
In Our Element,” the 18th annual event
of its kind, takes place 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 2. Attendees pay for the
bowls and get them filled with soup.
Tickets are available at soupbowl2018.
brownpapertickets.com.
The dimensions of the bowls are
specific: 6¾ inches by 3¾ when wet, and
they shrink when fired.
Months have blown by like the ash
that catches the wind of the dragon’s fire,
coating each pot with transformed fire-
wood (wood ash turned by superheat into
glaze). Here is the borderland between art
and craft. Here is the Zen of clay art.
The quiet quest
Rowland, like many of the potters
that support this mission, has labored
at the bowl project for 18 years. He, his
wife, Patty, and dozens of others have
been committed to clay as an art form
DAVID CAMPICHE PHOTO
The first firing of Richard Rowland’s new
Dragon Kiln
for decades. And they don’t seem in
any rush to have time or gravity de-
prive them of their quest to throw better
bowls.
The process is engaging, from the ini-
tial throwing of the clay (skill that takes
years to master), to trimming, bisque
firing, glazing and glaze firing at around
2,300 degrees.
At the kiln, six, seven or eight cords
of wood are split, dried and stacked for
every firing. The loading of this new
kiln generally takes three days, and the
firing a week. The kiln is nearly 30 feet
long with a chimney that snakes even
longer out of a long chamber of brick
and earth and into the cerulean sky. The
loading and burning of the 3-foot split
wood is around-the-clock for a week.
And no matter how many times you
have fired the dragon Kiln, no two
firings are the same. No strategy works
every time. That is part of the fun, and
the challenge.
Year after year, the potters do their
work quietly. And year after year, flame
carries the ashes up the belly of the
DAVID CAMPICHE PHOTO
DAVID CAMPICHE PHOTO
Ceramicist Richard Rowland
dragon and transforms raw clay pots into
stunning vessels of beauty, depth and
color.
This is a quiet world. At times, the
only earthly sounds around the Anagama
are the sweep of hot darting flames, or
wind creeping through the forest beside
the kiln. Or rain on the tin roof. Or a
mother deer slinking out of the woods to
examine this peculiar scene. Or breath-
ing, ours and the dragon’s.
Belief in community
This is a community kiln — meaning
it takes a community to build and support
this dragon vessel, and a community to
bring the pots to fruition. Donations of
wood are indispensable. So are the hours
of commitment of each potter.
Clay pots and vessels are about as old
as the earliest human habitation, and that
is part of the charm and magic. Potters
have always been a strong fabric in these
ancient communities.
Japan loves their potters, and a number
have been honored with the status of “na-
tional treasure.” They are supported by
Wood-fired bowls for The Harbor in Astoria and
the Tillamook County Women’s Resource Center
their government and its citizens. Of all
the countries that practice the art of the
clay form, Japanese potters are perhaps
the most abstract in shaping their forms.
Common villagers and city inhabitants
revere these forms with a devotion unlike
any other nation.
This fact is not lost on many potters in
the Pacific Northwest and across many
parts of the American landscape. These
local potters see their contributions as
truly significant. Prehistoric artisans
painted colored clays on the walls at
Lascaux. Early clay figures or clay dei-
ties travel back 60,000 years. Are not the
potters at Tucker Creek engaged in this
extended legacy? Are they not faithful to
the same ancient quest?
As Lao Tzu stated hundreds of years
before Christ:
Achieve results, but never glory in
them.
Achieve results, but never boast.
Achieve results, but never be proud
(too proud).
Achieve results, because that is the
natural way. CW