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Furutani Michio:
Anagama: Building Kilns and Firing

An English Translation

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I based the kiln you see on this site on Furutani's book (*). This in itself is an endorsement of the quality of his teaching. You see, before I built this kiln, I had never before seen an anagama in real life. In fact, I had never even seen or fired an ordinary wood kiln(**). Regardless, I was positive I wanted an anagama.

I searched high and low for a book that explained everything a novice would need to know. The closest I came was this tantalizing thread on Clayart. I am not easily daunted however, and within weeks, I had a copy of Furutani's book. That was the summer of 2001. It took 100 days to do a rough translation and more than six months to edit and clarify. It is now considerably easier to obtain Furutani's wisdom.

(*) Shiori Noro translated Furutani's work. Dick Lehman and I edited the translation for readability.

(**) With the exception of a tiny 1 cu. ft wood-fired kiln which I fired one time, and two clay anagama models less than 3 ft. long.

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