The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 49 No 1 April 2010

Focus: Wood-Firing
Once realising this in the making, the flame and kiln are comparative in purpose. The act of making
art using solid fuel burning kilns is not dissimilar - an exploration of the unexplored. Having fired
many wood kilns, one learns of the letting go to the fire - surrendering to the dragon. No amount
of academic learnt knowledge can help you now. It's back to intuitive knowing, getting to know the
unknowable, as the source of things is the maker, the perceiver working in a witnessing position.
Intuitively accessing a state of 'no mind' with direct impulse is creating results in spontaneous
movement, as the recorded response. Thinking cannot give you anything original. It is not in the mind's
nature. Thinking is a kind of barrier. How can you possibly think about the unknown or the original?
Thinking is just the ego choosing the same old things again and again.
If you can void your mind of all intellectualisation you are allowing the possibility for greater creativity.
As well as developing variations on what is known, imagined and seen, all then is passed to the
viewer through reflection and contemplation. It is In the act of creation, in the solitary wee hours of
a firing when the only sound is silence, working in isolation, not waiting for inspiration, but being
inspiration itself, that the artist gives generously of him or herself. You are plumbing the depths and
scaling the heights of reality, and of spirit Within the work, the fire, nothing is stable, everything is
constantly changing. Accidents and the random happenings introduce disharmony and imbalance
requiring flexibility of the artist, the ability to improvise, to be nimble and turn the unexpected to
advantage.
Soetsu Yanagi wrote in The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty:
"An oriental art lover eyes any and every perfect piece of technique with the suspicion
that i t contains little depth o f meaning."
Words fail the true nature of fine art as a visual language.
© Graeme Wilkie January 2010
Thanks to my greatest teachers: Doug Alexander, potter, and Joan Campbe ll, sculptor.
THE IOURNAl Of AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2010 71