Hikidashi - literally 'drawing out' - is the practice of removing pieces from the kiln at top temperature using tongs or other implements and then dowsing the glowing pot by plunging it into something - water or sawdust - to cool it rapidly under heavily reducing conditions. Unlike the usual oxidized iron surface colours produced in our two kilns by the long firings under oxidizing conditions, these
hikidashi pots come out either shiny black, or a creamy green, depending on which clay the body of made up from. It is somewhat like Raku, but rather than being the intended product of the massive anagama kilns, this technique was traditionally used to extract temperature test pieces from the kiln from strategic locations near the firebox or stoke holes.
The pieces we extract in this way are usually from the embers of the front of the kiln, and albeit we do this when the kiln is at top temperature, we have yet to do so in a scientific or methodical way to enable us to check the maturity of the clay bodies firing inside. There is just so much to learn with this, even with a large team of Japanese potters who are used to firing these kilns and for whom this process is quite normal. On both firings of the two Oxford Anagama, we have drawn a number of pots out on the last day of firing. The first ever pot, to come our of the first firing of our first Dragon Kiln is pictured below, a piece made of the black Devon clay by Kazuya Ishida from Bizen and plucked by him from the front of the firebox at around 1250C on the morning of Saturday 15th August 2015.
For a more detailed story on the process and the relationship to the black chawan, read Robert Yellin's account in the Japan Times online from the
Japan Times in 2001:
