Beads of sweat form on the forehead of Chizuru Akiya, 34, as she loads pine into a kiln under the watchful eye of her teacher, American potter Donna Gilliss.
"That was good timing," Gilliss said, remarking on the pace of the fire being stoked.
"High temperatures increase the burning speed. . . . You can hear the flames give a kind of pulling sound right in front of you due to the air circulating inside the kiln," the 56-year-old Bizen potter tells her student.
Another lesson learned -- use the sound of the kiln's fire to determine the amount of wood to burn.