Jessica was a guest at the Masonry Heater Association of North America again! As always, the conference was held at the Wildacres Retreat conference center near Asheville, North Carolina from April 10-16. Jessica represented Stone House Kachelöfen all week at the annual event. She led a workshop on how to assemble a kachelöfen.
A completed Muskoka Kachelofen glazed in Caramel.
The Muskoka Kachelofen is a small freestanding Kachelofen/Grundofen. It is named after a regional municipality in Central Ontario that is famous for its lake houses, cottages and stunning wilderness. The footprint of this stove is remarkably compact at only 63cm x 53cm x 208cm (24in x 20in x 80in). It is available in a number of colours. The demo unit will be glazed in a gorgeous deep green colour.
Jessica Steinhäuser is an award–winning Canadian ceramic artist who works on a grand scale, breathing new life into the ancient tradition of building kachelöfen. For her, they are akin to giant blank canvases that she turns into stunning art installations that warm both body and soul. Jessica studied pottery formally in Germany for four years. She then took a leap of faith and immigrated to Canada at age 22, and established a pottery business in 1989. Jessica created her first kachelofen in 2008. Since then she has designed and built over 50 ovens all over the world. Her work merges functionality with artistry: vibrant colour, sophisticated clean lines, and architectural sensitivity have become hallmarks of her work.
This was one of the most challenging ovens that Jessica has undertaken. One of our medium sized ovens might contain 100-150 pieces. This one has 250 pieces! This striking oven was conceived of as a room divider between a kitchen and a living room in an historical “New England” style farmhouse.
A maquette was made during the visualization stage of the project.The completed project as seen from the kitchen side.
The central portion of the kitchen side has a black pizza oven atop a bake oven. On the right hand side is the stove top. The fire chamber below is used to heat both the bake oven and the stove top. Wood is burned directly inside the pizza oven. The heat generated by this side of the kachelofen is not retained in the thermal mass. This means that it can be used year round without overheating the room. All of the features on this side share one chimney. On the left hand side is a ledge that can be used as counter space, or even a cozy sitting nook!
The living room side of the unit is used for heating.
A delicate relief pattern of a swallow accents the living room side of the unit. The inspiration for this pattern was found in a very special piece of jewelry owned by the client. We are particularly pleased by how the lines of the display alcove are mirrored by the fire chamber door. Beneath the door is a wood storage area. This side of the kachelofen is used for seasonal heating.
This sequence of photos shows the kachelofen in various stages of completion.An example of Jessica’s masterful slip trailing technique.The outer ceramic layer of bricks is typically built 1 – 2 levels ahead of the internal fire chamber/flue network.Felix creates the main fire chamber.Jessica adjusts the cook top.Both stainless steel chimney vents can be seen here.Note the “white on white” slip trailing above the cook top.Grouting and cleaning are the final steps.The installation team posing in front of the finished project!
It always feels great once the last few pieces of a project come out of the kiln. Our natural workflow has been interrupted by the pandemic, and it has often felt like things in the studio are taking longer to get done. Tasiana’s stove is a perfect example of this. Tasiana and Mathew signed off on this design back in September. Under normal circumstances these pieces would have been shipped out in January or February. The extra time involved however, turned into an advantage as we were able to refine the design of two parts of this stove. These refinements will make the installation process smoother!
technical drawing of Tasiana’s stove
The design includes a cat motif as part of a decorative garland around the top of the stove. We are extremely happy with how this section has turned out.
The uppermost ring of the stove
The last pieces out of the kiln were the abdeckplatten. These are the tiles that go on top of the stove.
Tiles for the top of Tasiana’s Stove. The “marquee” kacheln showing the date can also be seen here. There are parts for two other projects as well.
If all goes well we will ship this project out by the end of May!
One of the most challenging moulds that we’ve ever made was for this project. We wanted to reference the existing raised paneling in much of the house. We took meticulous measurements, and in the end decided to proportion the panels slightly differently.
Basic kachel for the project.The wood paneling that inspired the basic design
Making the moulds was a multistage process because of the complexity of the design.
Various stages in the creation of a working mould.
The first step was to make a positive wooden master mould (1). This mould obviously had no beading. From that we made an initial negative plaster mould. We planned to carefully drill rounded indentations into this mould using a drill press to create the beading (2a). It took quite a long time to find the right bit and determine the correct depth for the holes. Some of the test holes and mistakes can be seen in this photo. In the end we were able to find a router bit that worked perfectly. That gave us a master negative mould (2b). The final design called for 125 kachel, so we needed more than just one. From the master negative mould we cast a positive out of silicon (3). Silicon is more durable, and would allow us to more easily make multiple working moulds.
We ended up making a batch of eight working moulds. Two or three moulds ended up breaking during production, and needed to be replaced.
Initial batch of working moulds.
A replacement working mould.
The moulds were pressed full of clay by hand and left to sit overnight. Kacheln were removed the following day.
After firing the pieces twice (bisque and glaze), the kacheln were packed up and shipped off to their final destination!
This Kachelofen is named “Oven of Fire and Myth.” It was originally created in 2011. At that time Jessica was working as a production potter, but really wanted to build kachelöfen. She had no clients for any stoves. It was a long, hard road to find her first clients, as here in Canada nobody knows about kachelöfen.
Jessica wanted to show that kachelöfen can be works of art. She decided that one way to find potential clients was to exhibit stoves in public art galleries. She was able to secure a show at a public art gallery in Guelph. Jessica teamed up with well known Canadian artist Ryan Price. Ryan used the clay surface as a canvas for his drawings. He primarily used an underglaze pencil for the work.
Ryan and Jessica installing the oven at the MSACThe Oven of Fire and Myth at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre
The oven was exhibited in two different public art galleries. It was originally shown at that the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre (now the Art Gallery of Guelph) here in Guelph in 2011. It was later part of a larger, solo exhibition at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in 2014.
Installing at the Canadian Clay and Glass GalleryOven of Fire and Myth at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery
This was a very important part of our development as creators and builders of kachelöfen, so when it finally found a permanent home last year we were absolutely thrilled!
We’re off to the Blue Ridge Mountains this December to install a two-sided kachelofen in an historic century cabin. It all seems like an idyllic winter wonderland, and a perfect location for one of our stoves!
The main stove will be decorated with a traditional, hand drawn slip-trailed pattern. This is a photo of the pieces laid out on the floor of our studio:
The home owner decided to add another unit on the other side of the wall. The flue network will pass through a shared wall. This way two rooms can be heated with a single fire. Here are the bricks for the second oven laid out:
The concave shape of the “Schüsselkacheln” increases the radiant surface area of the bricks. This allows a slightly more compact oven design to radiate enough warmth for the area that needs to be heated.
The bucket of blue “wedgewood” glaze can be seen in the foreground of this photo. This was a wonderful glaze to work with. We work exclusively with Spectrum Glazes to achieve a wide range of results! Spectrum is a Canadian company that is a worldwide leader in glazing technology.
