Cylinder by Clayton Amemiya
In 1986, he enlisted Kuniyoshi’s help in building his own anagama kiln. Clayton’s anagama is essentially a 12-foot long tunnel, about 4½ feet tall and 4½ feet wide. Hot flames are drawn from one end of the tunnel to the other. Several factors determine the final look of each piece: the speed and intensity of the fire and how each piece is positioned in the kiln where the flying ashes vary the glaze so that no two pieces will look exactly the same. Even though it takes four days to tend the fire, the anagama allows Clayton to get much wider variations in glaze than he could with a gas kiln. He uses Big Island woods; ‘öhi‘a, keawe, koa and lichee, to fire his kiln.
