You have been living with ceramics for over 30 years - Michael SÃ¤lzer

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The first important encounter was with Wendelin Stahl. The master of form and glaze became a friend and a constructive critic. Stahl gave me the impetus for my identity as a ceramist. We fired together in his woodfired kiln. Then he built a gas kiln. My friendship with Helmut Rohde, which has long included his son Benjamin, has existed since I started kiln-building. It has always been important for me at a human level and goes far beyond exchanging views on technical matters. Meeting the Americans Fred Olsen and Don Reitz was also important. Olsen's books on kiln building were a treasure house for me… an early source of information. Olsen also had a dual identity as a ceramist and a kiln builder. I met him for the first time when he was building an anagama for the Institute of Ceramic and Glass Arts in Höhr-Grenzhausen. I finally met Don Reitz at a workshop in Bandol, France, in 2004. This motivated me to start searching myself, to stop trying to achieve perfection and to make new discoveries. Reitz, who only started to live his passion for ceramics at the age of fifty, creates pieces of impressive size and power. He works with the uninhibitedness and spontaneity of a child. Inspiration through Japanese ceramics came about through Kurôuemon Kumano. He is known at home in Japan as the Bear because of his size, and he is an experienced thrower who develops his rhythmic forms on the wheel. His rules for a "good" vessel match those of my master when I was in training. Although his work enjoys international recognition, Kumano sees himself as a learner, he is still "on the road". His unconventional application of glaze , especially his wonderful shinos, inspired my latest glaze experiments. Pictures by the American abstract expressionist Franz Kline were also a crucial experience for me. His pictures look like gigantic pieces of calligraphy, the result of spontaneous actions that release his internal pictorial world like an explosion. After studying Kline's pictures, the way I applied glaze changed: thick brushes, loud music and working with my whole body help to switch off control by the intellect. Surprising results are created that provoke new things. Nevertheless, a some point you devoted yourself entirely to stoneware and saltglaze – what does it mean to you to stick with a medium which has so much historical baggage, almost a little bit rustic? Since 1980, I have used almost exclusively Westerwald stoneware clay. But I have also experimented with a lot of other clay and porcelain bodies. That reached its climax at the first Kahla porcelain symposium in 1992. But I have always come back to Westewald stoneware clay. I am currently using a coarsely grogged clay, which offers me the kind of resistance I need when I am throwing, it is easy to join pieces and makes good surface structures. It takes salt well and it can stand high temperatures. It fires to 1350°C, cone 13. I can express myself best with this clay, and it is almost like an umbilical cord connecting me to my roots. ILLUSTRATIONS opposite page - detail of a glaze, fired to cone 13, 1350°C above - vase - stoneware - 2006 - h 21 cm november / deCember 2007 NEW CERAMICS 31
ILLUSTRATIONS - top - box - stoneware - 2007 - h 25 cm bottom - spindle-shaped vase - stoneware - 2007 - h 46 cm You often speak of research, precision, technology – in the context of kiln building of course, but in art, this tendency towards precision is restricitve. Can you find a satisfactory balance for yourself? Mastering the use of technology intelligently and skillfully is one of the basics and it is seen as a part of creative potential. This is true not only for ceramic technology, but also for (almost) every other area of life. An interest in perfecting firing led me to building my own kilns, from the frame they stand on to the electronic controller. Technology should never be an end in itself, just playing around, but it has to be subjected to purpose and function. Finding simple and economical solutions helps to make a living, of course. But the kilnbuilding company, which was founded in 1985 because of the demand among fellow potters for the newly developed "Zephyr" gas kiln, is still a one-man enterprise. It is my aim to pass on to others technical solutions that I have discovered for my own use. How do you make what and what with? And what does saltglaze mean to you? To exaggerate slightly, I take up and analyse forms from the early Rhineland stoneware, with their pronounced throwing rings and visible evidence of the production process, as well as the ornamental Baroque forms with the clearly divided body of the vessel forms. I throw, assemble either fresh or leatherhard, and I throw off the hump. The rhythm of the movement should be visible when you throw. To achieve this, I break the symmetry, the pots no longer run evenly on the wheel, they begin to dance. I assemble from slabs that are rolled up and stretched from the inside. Expansion cracks and cracked edges are intentional. The softer aura of freshly thrown clay contrasts with the rough edges of the drying clay. Saltglaze, which coats all the structures without hiding them, smooths the contrasts. I work with glazes, slips, powdered rock, ash, I apply these things with large brushes and with my hands… I leave space for random events and for my mood. Fire and salt overlap and create new colours and surface structures. Crawling, pinholing and bubbling are not avoided but are accepted as a visible sign of the individual characteristics of the raw materials and the way they react with each other. I look for extremes. In Bandol, you recently displayed your kilns, your own and the ones made professionally for others – how do you fire yourself, and have you got any hints for colleagues? Everything I make is fired with wood to 1350°C. When I am stacking the kiln, I place small bowls filled with salt around the pots. When the final temperature is reached, salt is thrown in through the firebox. My kiln works on the "Phoenix principle", named after a kiln project at the University of Phoenix, Arizona in 1978. An old Japanese kiln type was reconstructed and adapted. The firing chamber is situated above the firebox, and the chimney is integrated in the kiln. The construction principle and lightweight insulating bricks make a rapid, economical firing with a high end temperature possible. This type of kiln is simple, unspectacular, easy to modify and mobile. I made 32 NEW CERAMICS november / deCember 2007
Page 1: Michael Sälzer Profession and voca

You have been living with ceramics for over 30 years - Michael SÃ¤lzer

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