At 5.30am on a glorious English summer's morning I am alone in the bottom of this great china clay pit that is now Eden, having come to start the firing of my small kiln, sitting all pristine white on its emerald carpet, dwarfed by the giant biomes all around. The fire sends a column of white smoke and steam into the cool morning air. The creaking ventilation louvers from the nearby biome, signalled by computers, make fine adjustments to the atmosphere within. It is strange to be here amongst these sleeping giants - I could be on the set of a science fiction movie about a robot-controlled colony on a distant planet. The white 'tests' dotted around the greensward look like so many medieval pavilions on a jousting field, and in a sense I am about to do battle, although my adversaries are the elements of earth, fire, air and water. It would be inaccurate to say that my little kiln with its very basic technology is pitted against the power of high technology that surrounds me. Rather, I share with Eden the idea that the process of creation should be as beautiful as the end product.
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