'Fire in the Hole' - Scott Brough
This is a selection of works commissioned by Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga Hastings Art Gallery for the exhibition Burning Ground (2025).
Artist Statement:
Some time in 2023 I was asked by my friend Frances Martin (granddaughter of Estelle and Bruce Martin) if I would be at all interested in firing the smaller of two anagama (穴窯 – usually translated from Japanese as hole or cave kiln) built by the couple at their home in Bridge Pa, near Hastings. I was very interested. Although the kiln had not been fired for around twenty years, it was in very good condition, and only needed some of the exterior earthen coating replaced. Along with Holly Morgan and Louis Kittelson, we began to make arrangements to fire, which we did in May 2024.
Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga, or Hastings Cultural Centre as it was then known, opened in 1975, its inaugural exhibition was by New Zealand Society of Potters, organised and assembled by Bruce Martin. To mark the gallery's 50th anniversary in 2025, and the Martins' outstanding career as well as their legacy to the pottery community, we were invited to create an exhibition, featuring archival work by Bruce and Estelle, accompanied by new works by Holly and myself fired in their kiln.
Over the next two years, we fired the kiln five times, each time for around three days, starting with a small and slow bonfire, working in shifts to keep the fire going, continuously building heat and momentum, culminating in sustained high temperatures of 1260-1300° Celsius. No glazes were applied to the works before loading them into the kiln, all of the glazed and textured surfaces being a result of ash depositing during the firing, and melting to combine with the clay at extreme temperatures.
The works that I made were predominantly coiled by hand (a smaller number were thrown or formed from clay slabs). I decided to work in this way because the slower pace of working suited the relatively small kiln, and also to pay homage to the tradition of anagama, the pinnacle of which being the large coiled storage jars from the Muromachi era (1392–1573).
A particular inspiration for the body of work was the intertwined history of the gourd and pottery. Cultivated since ancient times through to the present day by different cultures the world over, the gourd has been as fundamental to civilisations as a means of storing and transporting food and water as pottery. Grown in an innumerable number of varieties and shapes, I see its swollen and sometimes slightly ribbed shape everywhere in the best pottery from history, whether as an intentional reference or not. In the ceramic traditions of China and Japan, the gourd form in pottery is usually restricted to the double gourd shape, being an auspicious symbol of fertility, harmony and prosperity. I have opted to use the more utilitarian single gourd shape, known to us in Aotearoa as hue.
The process of creating these works was hugely demanding and in the end, fulfilling. Each firing generally only yielded a small number of successful works. Gradually we were able to come closer to an understanding of how to manipulate the clay and firing schedule to produce the types of surfaces that interested us. I am currently building a new wood fired kiln a stone's throw from the original anagama kilns, thanks to the generosity of Frances and whanau, and with funding from Creative New Zealand. The kiln is based on a design by Kusakabe Masakazu, with whom I worked in 2017, and whom Bruce also had a personal connection, meeting several times, in Japan and in New Zealand.
