Cabin Building

Now all basic poles stood. It's exhaustive labor, but fun.

Poles are in irregular sizes and shapes; it is OK as long as the top of them align.

Building Cabin

I started to raise the poles for my small cabin. It's a very small cabin, still takes a lot of labor, to my surprise. I'm struggling with this 200 lb log. This is the heaviest log and I started for this one first.

Using tripod and two pulleys made it relatively easy until the base of the pole came to only two feet away to the concrete foot. But, from here the log becomes full weight of it. Two pulleys make it half of the weight, still too heavy to lift by myself. Although my neighbor Wesley told me he will help at any time, my plan is to put up by myself as much as I can.

Before I reached to cell-phone to call him for help, I tried to put a counter weight (another log), and it worked beautifully! You can see now the base of the pole is on the right spot of the concrete foot.

Some of the pieces recently fired.

Bowl with inlaid leaf pattern.

Bowl with leaf pattern.

Flower vase.

Flower vase

These are recent works. From the top: "fig leaves", "beech" and "Japanese maple". Each bowl is about 11" diameter. All sold at this moment.

I'm now planning to build a very small cabin (12' x 18' size) at the same site of the kiln. This is a initial image sketch.

It will be by wood frame with sawdust mixed plaster wall. I actually had to scale back the original plan so that I can start right now.

Originally, I was planning to build a bit larger size cabin with living/studio and loft area.

Since I build my kiln first, original house plan is far behind schedule. The difference of the floor elevation shown on this paper model reflects slope of the site.

Shallow bowl "Radiation" (10.5" dia.)

Shallow bowl "Winter Oak" (10.5" dia.)

Shallow bowl "Maple Leaves" (10.5" dia.)

Shallow bowl "Japanese Maple" (10.5" dia.)

Shallow bowl "Abstract Pattern" (10.5" dia.)

After stopping fire the kiln remains high temperature for a while. Even for my small kiln, it takes 24 hours or more before open the kiln chamber.

Fire mouths at about 2000F.

The last firing on Sep. 12 became night time work.
About Nature
"Nature" could mean many things for us. From hurricanes to bugs to morning glories. We experience nature only of its fraction at a time. Because nature can means so many things, it almost means nothing for our daily life. No wonder even highest spiritual leaders don't explain much about what the relationship between human and nature should be. We see one thing very beautiful, and other thing on the side of it ugly. But, as we cumulate our own experience, we cannot dismiss the balance of the nature that rewards us, and has the most profound imprication for our life. In this balance we see nature of the nature, which is beautiful.

I started to sell my pottery at Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. In addition to the fun of just watching people passing by, talking with customers (most of them, "potential" customers) directly is unexpected reward, which may not be the case if I sell my works through stores or agents.

My latest firing was on May 20. I know I am harming the surrounding nature by making a fire in the middle of the forest. Millions of young leaves are converting CO2 into oxygen. And here I am converting these oxygen into CO2 again. My excuse is that I'm using very efficient type of kiln, and activity itself is the way I can express my appreciation what nature gives us. Nature might be scowling at me while I am firing, but probably forgiving me after all because I use only half a cord of wood at a time and more than 50% of them are just fallen dead branches.

These are from my latest firing (May 20). Larger bowls are about 12" dia.

March 15, 2006

Seasonal change in the wood.

October, 2005