In India,
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In the summer of 2012, I started to explore the possibility of setting up a ceramic studio at my ancestral home. My ancestors lived in a small village of nearly 50 families at the time, called Asthua. The closest town (Laheriasarai) with any markets or household goods was 30kms away, and travel to it required almost an hour of tiring drive on very rough roads. This area is rich in alluvial soil, and agriculture is the dominant industry.
During an earlier trip to Japan, I learned that potters would use clay from the agricultural lands as part of the composition for stoneware clay body. In this area, then, I had direct access to largest part of material required in producing stoneware clay. Within a radius of 500kms were several coal mines, which indicated deposits of kaolin, a refractory material, and other minerals that would become part of the remaining raw material for my work.
480km away from Asthua is the industrial township of Bokaro Steel City, where I lived for a good portion of my youth. With many large furnaces used in steel production, refractory bricks were ubiquitous throughout the area. This was a perfect setting for me to further my research of refractory materials, and I made a revelatory visit to the area called Ramgarh where they made refractory bricks for the steel factories.
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My first surprise was the discovery that beehive kilns were being used for this purpose.
I had read that Jun Kaneko, the famous Japanese-American artist made monumental ceramic work and fired them in beehive kilns. How could they possibly be found in India as well, I wondered?
Have a look:
10 meter diameter beehive kiln chamber. One can see the tall entrance, through which women would carry tall piles of bricks on their heads to load the kiln. The door would be bricked up and the shorter opening with grate that you see are the ports for burning fuel (coal).
Notice the thick wall, the stacks of fired bricks for structure and raw brick stacks, and the flue on the ground, indicating that this is a downdraft kiln. The metal structure bracing the wall in place is in itself very intriguing.
One of the women worker seen here loading up the kiln.
A closer look at the opening on the floor, flue hole, which formed a circle nearly six inches inside the wall. The bricks to be fired were stacked within the circle of the flue.
A closer look at the firebox! The brick pile to the side would be used to shut this opening during the firing. Notice the grate and the colour of the metal reinforcement.
Approximately 30meter tall chimney for four such domes. Like many such operations, they would have one chamber loading up, one firing, one cooling, and one unloading on any given day.
In this image, one sees the chimney to the left, another chamber straight ahead and one to the right. Do you see the round disk-like object leaning against the right chamber? Thats an old damper! Under the ground is the channel which connects the flue to the chimney. A disk-like damper is used for monitoring the draft during firing.
Needless to say, the chimney is never allowed to cool down!
The factory manager shared information about the sources for kaolin, ball clay and feldspar that was most needed for my quest. I returned home with a bunch of notes that are still sitting in a box at my family home, as yet untapped. Since then, my life has brought me to Utah State University, where I continue to work. I had not thought of this strange coincidence again until the recent Archie Bray Instagram post reminded me of this amazing discovery and inspired me to share!
I still wonder how it is possible that these kilns, with such similar designs, are found on opposite sides of the world? Could the fact that both America and India were British colonies have something to do with it? My mind was, and still is, pondering this mystery...
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