In the Autumn of 2004, after studying with American anagama pioneers for over a decade, I designed and built Loci May, the first anagama in Putnam County, New York. Her chamber is 13 1/2 feet long, her flue 3 ½ feet long, and her chimney 13 1/2 feet tall. About 30 people can fit comfortably inside.

At the near corner of Woodbury Den, Loci May’s shelter, there are a Locust and Maple that have been sharing the same soil for 3 or 4 decades, the same time I have been alive. Their roots and trunks have grown into each other, spiraling upward in a mutual embrace. I named Loci May after that Locust and Maple.

Glauco is the symbol for Loci May and the logo for Ostones. I drew it while looking at the cross-section of a rotting tree I cut down. I learned from a friend that a tree with such a growth pattern had been struck by lightning, which is fitting for Loci May. A typical lightning stroke heats the air to about 50,000 degrees F, while the surface temperature of the Sun and that of Earth’s iron core are about 10,000 degrees F. Loci May holds her own with this group, reaching temperatures above 3000 degrees F.

Just like the circle, the Glauco symbol is found repeatedly in nature and represents many things: the charge of lightning through the wood of a tree, an open heart, horns, bamboo, scorpion tails, two people talking, the snout of a dragon, a spiral, movement, stages, continuation. I named the symbol Glauco after Glaucon, the student in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, to remind myself to remain open and inquisitive in my work rather than allowing my actions to become rote.