Showing posts with label Fire research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fire research. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Turf fires - burning peat
Cooking and living with peat fires
Peat fires may seem like a wintertime topic, but in fact summer is the time for cutting turves of peat, drying them, and stacking them.
There used to be many areas of northern Europe better supplied with peat bogs than with trees. Peat, also called turf, was a convenient household fuel when there wasn't much firewood around. Some regions of North America made use of peat for domestic fires in the 1700s and 1800s - and a few still do. (See quote lower left column.) It's been used for cooking, heat, and what we would now call background lighting for longer than history has been written.
Well into the mid-20th century there were places where peat fires were kept alight all year on the floor of a cottage. You can also burn turf, or sod, on open hearths, and in well-engineered fireplaces with grates. Natural, locally-dug peat is still used for domestic heating in Scotland and, famously, in Ireland where the slices of peat are always called turves and the fires are turf fires - even when manufactured peat briquettes are used. In the 19th century cutting peat for fuel was an important part of life in Scandinavia, and in fenland or moorland regions of England, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.
In Ireland, Scotland and parts of England it was considered very important to keep the fire burning all the time. At bed-time a peat block and/or ashes would be arranged to "smother" the fire without extinguishing it, so it would stay gently smouldering overnight. Then in the morning it would be blown into life again. Because of the significance laid on never letting the hearth go cold it's hard to find descriptions of anyone lighting a domestic peat fire. There would surely have been varied local customs for building the pile of turves, the use of kindling etc. - just as there were different tools and customs for cutting peat. Peat quality varies too, depending on its depth, colour, age, and more.
...on the hearth, the ashes, instead of being inconvenient, are extremely useful to poor people in various processes of their cookery. Hot peat ashes are excellent for roasting fish, eggs, etc.; and likewise for stewing, and any kind of cookery that requires a mild heat. In this respect it approaches to charcoal.
Webster and Parkes, An Encyclopædia of Domestic Economy, 1855
Peat fires may seem like a wintertime topic, but in fact summer is the time for cutting turves of peat, drying them, and stacking them.
There used to be many areas of northern Europe better supplied with peat bogs than with trees. Peat, also called turf, was a convenient household fuel when there wasn't much firewood around. Some regions of North America made use of peat for domestic fires in the 1700s and 1800s - and a few still do. (See quote lower left column.) It's been used for cooking, heat, and what we would now call background lighting for longer than history has been written.
Well into the mid-20th century there were places where peat fires were kept alight all year on the floor of a cottage. You can also burn turf, or sod, on open hearths, and in well-engineered fireplaces with grates. Natural, locally-dug peat is still used for domestic heating in Scotland and, famously, in Ireland where the slices of peat are always called turves and the fires are turf fires - even when manufactured peat briquettes are used. In the 19th century cutting peat for fuel was an important part of life in Scandinavia, and in fenland or moorland regions of England, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.
In Ireland, Scotland and parts of England it was considered very important to keep the fire burning all the time. At bed-time a peat block and/or ashes would be arranged to "smother" the fire without extinguishing it, so it would stay gently smouldering overnight. Then in the morning it would be blown into life again. Because of the significance laid on never letting the hearth go cold it's hard to find descriptions of anyone lighting a domestic peat fire. There would surely have been varied local customs for building the pile of turves, the use of kindling etc. - just as there were different tools and customs for cutting peat. Peat quality varies too, depending on its depth, colour, age, and more.
...on the hearth, the ashes, instead of being inconvenient, are extremely useful to poor people in various processes of their cookery. Hot peat ashes are excellent for roasting fish, eggs, etc.; and likewise for stewing, and any kind of cookery that requires a mild heat. In this respect it approaches to charcoal.
Webster and Parkes, An Encyclopædia of Domestic Economy, 1855
Yves Klein
In the spring of 1961, Klein was able to gain access to one of France's major destructive testing laboratories (much like NIST here in the USA), whose gas powered flame propagation equipment Klein made terrific use of. The 'Fire Paintings' today remain along wth the IKB Monochrome paintings and the frighteningly existential 'Leap into the Void' some the most elemental and spiritual of his works, counterpointing the overwhelming and fiercely intellectual power of his work.
Using the bodies of young women as a mask (he had them covered in flame retardant and transfer their nubile forms onto the receiving paper - such that the impressions their corpulence left on the paper would serve to hinder the action of the flames - leaving a negative impression against the figure of the flame's action.
Fascinatingly, the action of 'burning' a figure onto the paper receiver is innately photographic - not only is there strong similarities in the sense that an energy(light in the case of photography) used to darken or create a figure in the substrate - but the masking technique (like 'dodging' in the darkroom) functions in an identical fashion. The net result isn't at all unlike a 'heliograph', or 'light painting'.
Rf:
http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.c4gallery.com/artist/database/yves-klein/fire-paintings/fire-painting-F36-yves-klein-1961.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.c4gallery.com/artist/database/yves-klein/yves-klein-fire-paintings.html&usg=__4PaFpU7IvL6XLyQ6lqPqO2jYbgA=&h=450&w=350&sz=79&hl=en&start=12&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=h5_D8-QpfWPcJM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3DYves%2BKlein%2Bfire%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
Using the bodies of young women as a mask (he had them covered in flame retardant and transfer their nubile forms onto the receiving paper - such that the impressions their corpulence left on the paper would serve to hinder the action of the flames - leaving a negative impression against the figure of the flame's action.
Fascinatingly, the action of 'burning' a figure onto the paper receiver is innately photographic - not only is there strong similarities in the sense that an energy(light in the case of photography) used to darken or create a figure in the substrate - but the masking technique (like 'dodging' in the darkroom) functions in an identical fashion. The net result isn't at all unlike a 'heliograph', or 'light painting'.
Rf:
http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.c4gallery.com/artist/database/yves-klein/fire-paintings/fire-painting-F36-yves-klein-1961.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.c4gallery.com/artist/database/yves-klein/yves-klein-fire-paintings.html&usg=__4PaFpU7IvL6XLyQ6lqPqO2jYbgA=&h=450&w=350&sz=79&hl=en&start=12&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=h5_D8-QpfWPcJM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3DYves%2BKlein%2Bfire%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
Monday, 8 February 2010
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