In 2021, during the COVID lockdown, my Anagama-fired ceramic cup Nature’s Cup won Second Prize in the Cup Competition organized by Crackpot Studio and Gallery in Freshwater, Sydney. The cup was fired during a 100-hour Anagama firing in the Blue Mountains. Its unusual form combines a recognizable cup with the rough appearance of a rock, while ash, flames and embers created much of its distinctive surface treatments. The award was particularly meaningful because it was my first art award, and during lockdown it felt like a much-needed vote of confidence in my ceramic practice.
When a Ceramic Cup Becomes Something More
In 2021, during the COVID lockdowns, life became strangely quiet.
There were fewer events, fewer exhibitions and fewer opportunities to show work. Like many artists, I suddenly had more time in the studio. Instead of knowing exactly where my work was going next, I found myself making things simply because I wanted to make them.
Earlier that year, in June 2021, I had participated in a 100-hour Anagama firing in the Blue Mountains. I had prepared a body of work specifically for the firing, and the results were extraordinary. One of those pieces was a cup called Nature’s Cup.
Later, when Crackpot Studio and Gallery in Freshwater, Sydney, organized a Cup Competition, I decided to enter one of my Anagama-fired pieces. I had no idea what would happen. It became my first art award. Nature’s Cup received Second Prize in the competition. And during a year when there wasn't much good news, it felt enormous.
What Is an Anagama Firing?
Anagama firing is very different from a conventional electric kiln firing. The kiln is fueled with wood, and the firing can continue for many days. In this particular firing, we worked for approximately 100 hours.
That meant a small group of us took shifts, sometimes six or eight hours at a time, continually feeding wood into the kiln. Every ten or fifteen minutes, another load of wood had to go in. It is physically demanding work.But there is something incredibly beautiful about it too.
You are not simply putting your work into a kiln, pressing a button and waiting for a programmed firing schedule. You are actively participating in the firing. You are working with fire. And, in a strange way, you are listening to the kiln.
Listening to the Kiln
One of the things I love most about Anagama firing is that the kiln communicates with you. After you put another load of wood into the kiln, you can hear the fire burning. There is the crackling and popping of the wood. There are flames, embers and heat. Then, gradually, the sounds become quieter. We would stand outside the kiln and listen.
When the sounds died down, that was one of the signals that it was time to stoke the kiln again. There were visual cues too. When we opened the stoking hole, we could look inside and read the atmosphere of the kiln. So the process became almost like a conversation:
We watched the kiln. We listened to the kiln. We responded to the kiln. And the kiln responded to us.
For me, this is one of the most beautiful aspects of Anagama firing. It becomes a collaboration between the artists, the wood, the flames, the ash and the kiln itself.
The Fire Became the Artist
When my pieces went into the kiln, they were mostly bare clay. There was glaze on the inside of Nature’s Cup, but the outside was completely unglazed. It looked very different before the firing. After five days and five nights of wood firing, it was transformed.
Ashes had landed on the surface. Flames had moved around the piece. Embers and wood ash had interacted with the clay. The firing produced colors, textures and surface effects that I could never have painted onto the piece in quite the same way.
Normally, if I wanted to create a complex surface, I might spend considerable time applying different glazes, colors and decorative techniques. With Anagama firing, something else happens. The fire does some of the decorating for you.
But I don't think that means the artist becomes irrelevant. We are the ones who make the pots. We choose the clay. We decide how to construct the pieces. We load the kiln. We position the work. We feed the fire for 100 hours.
Then we allow the kiln to take over part of the process. I think of it almost like the kiln has become an artist with a brush. The difference is that its brush is made of flame, ash, smoke and embers.
Nature’s Cup: Half Cup, Half Rock
When I made Nature’s Cup, I wasn't trying to make a conventional drinking vessel. From one angle, you can clearly see a cup. From another angle, it looks almost like a piece of rock. It has a rounded, usable cup-like form on one side, while another section remains rough, uneven and geological-looking.
It almost looks as though somebody has found a rock in nature and started carving a cup out of it—but stopped before the transformation was complete. That was the idea behind the name Nature’s Cup. I wanted the object to sit somewhere between a natural formation and a human-made vessel. And the Anagama firing strengthened that idea.
The ash and fire effects made the piece feel even more connected to the earth. The surface wasn't completely controlled by me. It carried evidence of what had happened inside the kiln. The cup became a record of the firing itself.
Why I Entered It in the “Mythical” Category
The Cup Competition had several categories, including functional, mythical and futuristic categories. I entered Nature’s Cup into the mythical category. That seemed appropriate to me because it wasn't really a conventional cup.
It was still a cup—you could recognize the vessel—but it also looked like something that could belong to another world. That ambiguity was part of what made the piece interesting to me.
My First Art Award
When I found out that Nature’s Cup had received Second Prize, I was thrilled. It was completely unexpected. This was during the 2021 COVID lockdown, when so much of normal life had stopped. There wasn't much happening, and there weren't many opportunities for artists to exhibit or receive recognition.
So receiving that news was incredibly exciting. More than simply being happy about winning, I remember feeling supported. It felt as though someone had looked at my work and said, Yes. We see what you're doing. It felt like a vote of confidence.
And because it was my first art award, it became a particularly important moment in my development as an artist. Since then, my ceramic practice has continued to develop, and I have recently received Highly Commended at the Yurunga Small Sculpture Prize for my sculptural work Musing About Moon Jars.
Looking back, that first Second Prize at the Cup Competition now feels like an important early recognition of my work.
What Anagama Has Taught Me About Letting Go
One of the strange things about Anagama firing is how much uncertainty is involved. You can spend months making work. You put all of those pieces into one kiln. Then you fire. For 100 hours, you don't really know exactly what is happening to your work inside.
And when the firing finally ends, you can't immediately open the kiln. You have to wait. In our case, we waited approximately one week for the kiln to cool sufficiently before we could unload it.
So after all those months of preparation, there are 100 hours of firing—and then another week of waiting. You might expect that to be incredibly stressful. But I've discovered that I don't feel particularly anxious about it. I enjoy the process too much.
I enjoy being around the kiln. I enjoy the physical work. I enjoy feeding the fire and watching and listening to what is happening. And when the kiln is finally opened, I'm usually very happy with the results.
Not every piece will be the same, of course. The position of a pot inside the kiln can make an enormous difference. The clay, the shape of the piece, its surface and its exact location in the kiln can all influence the final result. Every Anagama firing teaches me something new.
You Can't Completely Control the Outcome
I think this is one of the most valuable things ceramics has taught me. There is a point where you have to stop trying to control everything. You can make decisions. You can develop your skills. You can prepare carefully. You can make the best possible work and put it in the best possible position.
But eventually, you have to allow something else to happen. With Anagama firing, that “something else” might be the fire. For me, that doesn't feel frightening. It feels freeing. The unpredictability is part of why I keep coming back to this process.
Anagama Is a Collaboration
I don't see Anagama firing as simply a technique for producing beautiful surfaces. For me, it is a collaboration. The artist contributes the making, the decisions, the physical work and the knowledge. The people firing the kiln contribute hundreds of hours of labor.
The wood provides the fuel. The fire transforms the atmosphere. The ash settles onto the pots. And the kiln brings all these elements together. The finished piece carries traces of all of them.
That is why Nature’s Cup means more to me than simply being a cup that won an award. It is a record of a particular firing, a particular moment and a particular collaboration between artist, clay, fire, wood, ash and kiln.
And perhaps that is why it felt so appropriate that this unusual object—part cup, part rock—was recognized during such an unusual time.