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LeAnne Ash, North Carolina

LeAnne Ash

LeAnne Ash


One of her continuing ceramic interests involves the Energy Xchange, which is how I first discovered her. Her work is classically functional with a strong handmade style.
Of her work, she says, “I have always had an interest in food, cooking, and culture, so it feels natural for me to make pottery. As a potter, there is no greater joy than eating at a table filled with good friends, good food, and great pots. Pottery elicits a strong human emotion triggered by beauty, memory and touch, which can be very powerful. Although pottery can be very complex, I am drawn to the simplicity of its nature.”
LeAnne Ash lives and works in the mountains of Western North Carolina, and is a resident artist at the EnergyXchange. She makes wheel thrown and hand-built functional pottery fired in a landfill gas powered reduction kiln. The beauty of the mountainous landscape and its rich community of contemporary potters serve as great inspiration for her.
EnergyExchange.org

EnergyXchange.org


http://www.energyxchange.org
At EnergyXchange, in Burnsville, North Carolina, methane gas from a former landfill is collected by an underground system of vents and fed to the above ground distribution valve (foreground). The gas is then used to fire ceramic kilns and gas furnaces and to heat studios.
http://ceramicartsdaily.org/firing-techniques/gas-kiln-firing/tip-of-the-week-being-green-in-the-pottery-studio/?floater=99
The above link will take you to a really good article in Ceramic Arts Daily on the use of fuel for firing at the EnergyXchange.
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LeAnne Ash

LeAnne Ash


LeAnne Ash

LeAnne Ash


LeAnne Ash calls herself a green potter, and has been using landfill gasses to fire her kiln.
She grew up in Louisville, KY, received her BFA in ceramics from the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, OH.
She furthered her education with an internship concentrating on maiollica studies at the studio and home of Deirdre Daw, Seattle, WA, and has attended and assisted several workshops at the Penland School of crafts in Penland, NC.
She was a resident artist at the Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts in Asheville, NC from 2003-2005. Since 2003 she has been an instructor at Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts, Asheville, NC.
LeAnne Ash

LeAnne Ash


I love her funky, earthy functional pottery. Her work is set apart by quiet details such as undulating rims, layered surfaces, and soft directional changes.
She uses the potter’s wheel and adds hand-building techniques to make each piece look unique and hand-made. She uses stoneware clay, which gives her work an earthy style, and uses layers of slip extensively along with glazes. The pottery is fired to 2300 degrees in a kiln.
Her work focuses on functional pieces and the majollica experience and her use of slips are readily apparent in the surface appearance of her work, adding to the earthy, funky feel of each piece.

http://www.crimsonlaurelgallery.com/exhibitors/ceramic-artists/leanne-ash/

LeAnneAsh

LeAnneAsh


LeAnne Ash Ceramics
According to her Artist Statement, her love of ceramics “grew out of her love of food, friends, and a nice table.”

Publications:
Ceramics Monthly. “Going Green.” December 2007

Our State, Down Home In North Carolina. “Branching Out.” January 2007

500 Cups. Lark Books, Sterling Publishing Co., New York, NY

Energy Xchange
66 EnergyXchange Dr.
Burnsville, NC 28714
828-675-5541
info@energyxchange.org
http://www.mudfire.com/leanne-ash.htm

Go here to read about December’s first firing in the new kiln designed to burn whole pallets:
http://www.energyxchange.org/news-events?phpMyAdmin=5LXYeBFktviSmoys0u2BLM669-1

Comments (2)

November 29, 2009 · Filed under Ceramics, Potters

Ceramics and Pottery News

ceramicartsdaily.org is my favorite e-subscription. No quibbling about that.

Mata Ortiz style pot

Mata Ortiz style pot


Today it’s hand-building for the video, but on any day Ceramic Arts Daily is my fave.
It’s free, (my favorite price) and chock full of great clay-related info. This magazine keeps my love of clay play alive between semesters.
The current article and video is about African drum making over a mold. Raku firing is used and the result is graceful and beautiful. Now I want to make one. I want to hear one, and I want to play one.
I would like to experiment with the sounds produced by different firing temperatures, so I guess that means making several copies of the same pot, which could be interesting.
Well, there’s a project for low-tech art and craft communities. I suppose they would market well.
WOW, that whole paragraph was the direct result of my Ceramic Arts Daily free email.
Thanks CAD.

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August 7, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

Primitive Kilns

Researching pottery for a third-world setting, I found the kiln to be the trickiest point.
The clay is ‘mined’, prepared by slurry to sort off the large pieces and screened to reserve only the clay, and then sand or mica or other materials are added to it. It is then dried to the consistency that we use in the classroom. Hopefully, the pottery and kiln can be built close to the source of clay.
I researched a design for a kiln dug out of a hillside, a pit kiln and a built kiln out of brick. I even found a hollow tree trunk kiln.
Hollow Tree Trunk Kiln
Richard Boyt talks about using a hollow tree stump to low-fire clay without any added insulation. It is so well insulated that the outsides never get hot, it can be picked up and put aside, then smothered or doused and used again.
http://www.bioenergylists.org/stovesdoc/Boyt/ceramics/ceramics3b.html
To quote an interesting part of the report:
“Save any char that is left. We can use it later to make a lightweight ceramic insulation. Also save ash. We can use it to make a high-potassium liquid that serves as a semi-glaze. I have used it to harden the surface of lightweight ceramic insulation.”
A little more basic kiln is the pit kiln.

Oaxacan Pit Kiln

Oaxacan Pit Kiln


This kiln is filled with pots and sticks of wood. The wood is just stacked around, under and over the pots very carefully. There is no chimney, and the kiln burns and smolders overnight, producing a low firing, certainly below cone 04.
I would like to try this pit kiln:
http://www.micaweb.com/purple/emine/outdoor.html
The kiln described here uses three inches (3″) of sawdust, then the rack, then your low-fire clay pieces, then sawdust. Another rack, pots, then sawdust, and so on.
I can imagine problems with getting the sawdust to burn, but wicks of brush or other material set throughout the sawdust and pots would fix that.
The pit is then covered with a lid that’s raised a few inches with bricks for ventilation. The lid used in this example is a galvanized steel trashcan lid.
I’ve seen the same thing done with dried cow patties, and I’ve also seen clay plastered on the inside to self-bake and create a more permanent pit kiln. The only ventilation this kiln needs is through the top, which simplifies the design considerably.
I found a great site for pit-fired pottery, this pit is used for decorative finishes and not always as a hardening process.
Pit fired ceramic is more porous (softer) because of the lower temperatures. 800-1200 degrees Fahrenheit is typical.
http://www.robertcomptonpottery.com/Method%20of-Pit-Firing-Pottery.htm
Carbon Trapped pit-fired pot

Carbon Trapped pit-fired pot


The most basic pit kiln I have found is on the Potters for Peace website.
Nicaragua roadside kiln

Nicaragua roadside kiln

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May 2, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

Insulating clay bricks

Insulation in a kiln, even an open pit kiln, is very important. The link below is to a paper written by Richard Boyt in May of 2003. He notes experiments in firing insulating bricks.
http://www.bioenergylists.org/stovesdoc/Boyt/ceramics/ceramics3a.html
I made a few bricks with varying results. I wondered what would result if there was no sawdust available for the traditional recipe, and tried other ingredients.
For these insulating bricks I used 1 pound of clay and various materials. I think the millet worked the best overall, because the holes are uniform, but a food source is unlikely to be widely used in a poverty area.
Because I had access to a cone 04 kiln, I fired these at cone 04, but in a third-world setting it would have been a much lower firing temperature.
A time-honored recipe for insulating bricks:
mix a quantity of sand and a little sawdust to the clay the sand should be added to about 25 % of the mix and the coarse sawdust to about 5%.
The sand will let the moisture escape from the brick and the sawdust will burn out raising the r value of the brick. The r value is a measure of thermal resistance, the bigger the number, the better the insulating properties of the material.
This is mixed in a slurry and poured into molds or else allowed to dry to a consistency where it can be formed. It takes a long time to dry, depending on the weather, and a long time to bake. In many pit kilns the clay is pressed into the sides of the pit, allowed to dry, and then fired in place.

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May 2, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

The Lenca Indians

The Mesoamerican peoples who lived in the Honduran territory at the time of the Spanish conquest, the Chortis, Chorotegas and Lencas, developed a highly sophisticated level of pottery, ranging from the simplest products for daily use to the most intricate ceremonial objects. Fixed in clay, these people detailed their astrological observations and aesthetic tastes as well as left recordings of their daily life.
Firing is, for the most part, open pit or semi-open pit, using wood for fuel. Cone 04 or lower is typically attained by this method.
The Lenca Indians are one of the first known peoples of Honduras, some 1,500 years ago.

Lencan Pottery

Lencan Pottery


My focus has been on the urban poor in Honduras, and there is a small artist community in Valle de Angeles, near the capital city of Tegucigalpa, who sell their pottery on the Lencan site. Since they have a process in place it might be possible to enhance their marketing and production methods in ceramics with the working budget I will have.
There is a lot of pottery, both utility ware and decorative art ware, made in Central America.
Nicaragua is becoming famous for its pottery artisans through Potters for Peace. Potters for Peace has made it their goal to meet every potter in Nicaragua. There are so many wonderful stories on their website!

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May 1, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

Pottery items that might be manufactured and marketed

Some ceramic items I have seen marketed on etsy.com, Potters for Peace, Aid to Artisans and other sites are:

beads and jewelry
pots and vases
figurines (grotesqueries, masks)

Muddy Muse beads

Muddy Muse beads


A great example of how to market ceramic beads:
http://www.etsy.com/
Muddy Muse, the bead makers, sell on etsy.com
Aid to Artisans is also a great marketing tool for emerging economies, and they help ceramics artisans. Their site is well worth looking at.
http://www.aidtoartisans.org/
Water Filters
One of my concerns in using materials and techniques available to developing countries is the impact on the environment. Potters for Peace addresses that concern elegantly with unfired cement block (which apparently is abundant in Managua), turning it into clay. The methods used in working the cement block, all the way up to firing, is very low-tech and low-environmental impact. The firing is done in a ‘mani kiln’ which is built of bricks and uses small pieces of fuel, sawdust, dung, and anything burnable, I suspect.
Plans for the mani kiln: http://pottersforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/building-the-mani-kiln.pdf
With the addition of sawdust and colloidal silver to the clay, they then manufacture the water filters. The water filters provide a cheap and safe way to filter out over 99% of impurities in local waters. Firing is around 1600 to 1700 degrees Fahrenheit.
Potters for Peace are active with water filters in Iraq, too, and have a military-spec production manual on line. The military method calls for 1650 degrees Fahrenheit, which is where the mani kiln comes in.
http://pottersforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/production-manual-iraq.pdf
Unicef is providing ceramic filters for the people of Myanmar. http://www.unicefusa.org/news/news-from-the-field/ceramic-water-filters-improve-1.html
I love the idea of producing water filters, but the firing temperature is higher than most of the Central American potters will reach without a ‘real’ kiln.

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May 1, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized