Celina Blog:"13 The kiln called “Ittekoi” Part I"

Ittekoi means “go and come back” It is also called “anko” because it resembles the shape of a fish known by this name. As explained in blog # 12, the “ittekoi” klln is downdraft type,

just like a noborigama, this meaning that the fire goes out through the chimney after a full

turn inside the chamber. This turn ends at the floor level. The red line follows the fire from the feeding mouth to the chimney.

These drawings show a very narrow feeding mouth and almost no space for the combustible.

Author Kawamura Kitaro in his book (Yakimono o Tsukuro, Bijutsu

shuppansha Tokyo 1970) includes a detailed section for a kiln like this. He added a small vault in the front side, yet, he commends this kiln only for low temperature firing; the firewood burns down at the entrance and this waste of heat impeded him to reach high temperatures.

Later, this problem was solved by Prof. Kawasumi the author of the ittekoi kiln plans

we fired at the Ceramic Park in Shigaraki, in a very different way: he used an air blowing machine sending the fire to the rear back of the kiln so we could get a more stable atmosphere and reach more than 1230˚C. The lateral opening is for stacking and it is closed with a brick

wall when the fire is going to be put on. As you may have imagined, much of a kiln atmosphere depends also on the way the kiln is stacked. Potters like to place similar sized and shaped pots in each board because this ensures a smooth flowing of the fire; different sized pots create swirls altering the

atmosphere stability, although this also can be used for special results. Within this small chamber, it is difficult to keep an stable atmosphere, be it OF or RF, so more often than not, we have what some potters like to call a neutral atmosphere although the term “light reduction” is now more commonly used. Light reduction can also be used at advantage to get some difficult (due its ambiguity) results as copper reds needing a more reductive than oxidizing atmosphere and the Japanese pink halo (gohon-te) requiring just the contrary.