All my works are made of stoneware clay and are fired at a temperature of 1280 degrees in a gas kiln. Occasionally, I also use my electric oven, especially when a reducing effect on the glaze is not desired.

In addition, I sometimes burn vessels in a capsule filled with flammable material such as charcoal or sawdust. The smoke development inside the capsule leaves an interesting surface on the vessels.

White, grey and red stoneware clays from Germany are processed, as well as two stoneware clays from Japan, AKASHIGARAKI, a reddish-brown stoneware clay from Shiga Prefecture in central Honshu, and HAGI, a cream-coloured fine porcelain-like clay from Yamaguchi Prefecture in the far southwest of Honshu.

The stoneware clay SHIGARAKI is relatively coarse and is very suitable for larger vessels. Blue and green glazes look especially beautiful on this clay as the iron inclusions in the clay can be seen through the glaze. But even unglazed, the red-brown clay color of SHIGARAKI is very beautiful.

The clay HAGI is very fine and is used in Japan mainly for tea bowls and vessels for the tea ceremony. When firing, the clay turns creamy to reddish. Glazes made of ash look especially good on the clay HAGI.

The vessels shown here are often glazed with ash glazes. Glazes can be made from many types of wood and plants. Thus, interesting glazes are obtained from wood ash, ashes from vineyard wood, ashes from leaves of various trees such as walnut or chestnut trees, or from cereals or rice husks.

Some ashes, such as the rice husk ash Warabai or a certain wood ash Izubai, I get from Japan. Other ashes such as walnut leaf ash, chestnut leaf ash and vineyard wood ash are collected and made by myself, friends and relatives.

DOBAI is a glaze made of wood ash, which, depending on the type of tree or part of the tree - trunk, branches, twigs, its location and the atmosphere in the oven, can turn out from dull yellow to green glossy.

WARABAI is an ash made from rice husks. Depending on the thickness of the application, the glaze appears transparent on the vessel, greenish to light blue to matt white. 

These base glazes can be colored by adding oxides. By adding 5-10% iron oxide, glazes such as IRAHO are formed; KAKI; TEMMOKU, which are characterized by an ochre-yellow, rust-red to brown-black color.

The green-blue glazes like TAKATORI; SORA-TAKATORI and SELADON are also ash-based.

Essential for these glaze colours is reduction firing; i.e. a process in which the air supply is reduced above a certain firing temperature. 

The SHROKARATSU glaze is a pure ash glaze that turns out white-bluish or cream-coloured, depending on the substrate and atmosphere in the kiln.

In the case of SHIRO-MATT or TALK-MATT, matting agents such as talc have been added. The vessels fired at stoneware temperature (1280°C) do not require any further melting of the glaze.