East Creek Art is a twenty acre forest art retreat in Oregon’s coastal mountains, located about 80 miles from Bonsai Mirai. Situated amongst large Douglas firs and big leaf maples, East Creek is home to the 40 foot East Creek Anagama, the first anagama style kiln built west of the Mississippi. Firing continuously for 40 years, the Anagama is a 9th century Korean design that came to the US via Japan in 1983. As is typical for large anagama kilns, one firing produces over 1,000 individual works and is an 8 day effort, including burning around the clock for 5 days and nights.
Joe Robinson’s impeccable design containers are handcrafted vessel thrown and then manipulated by hand to create stunning iterations of the traditional form. Unglazed and fired for 5 days and nights in the 40 foot East Creek Anagama wood burning kiln, each piece Joe creates is unique and incapable of duplication. All effects on the pieces are the result of the wood firing process. Robinson has been working in clay for over 2 decades and is the proprietor of the East Creek studio, situated on 20 forest acres in Oregon’s coastal mountains. Joe is inspired by the verdant beauty of the forest and the surprise and delight yielded by the anagama kiln.
