Raku

I love Raku pottery.  I think it is my favorite method of ceramics.  These pieces are so unique and have so much character.  Once you develop an understanding of the glazes and the elements (i.e. fire and air), you can make some really spectacular pieces.  Furthermore, no matter how hard you try, no two pieces will ever be exactly the same.  As with most things in life, there is always the uncertainty of how things will turn out in the end.  I like that.  I like not knowing what is going to happen, or how things will turn out.  It is most often a learning experience and almost never how you expect them to.  Unless you don’t have any expectations.  Then you leave yourself open to what will be.

Raku is a type of Japanese pottery that was used a long time ago in tea ceremonies.  There were two main types of tea bowls: Winter and Summer.  Winter tea bowls had thicker walls that generally went straight up...much like a cylinder.  This allowed the tea to maintain its warmth in cooler weather.  Summer tea bowls had thinner walls and fanned out to allow the tea in the summer to cool.

This piece I made a long time ago, but it is one of my favorites.  I used a white crackle glaze.  The black lines you see are places that I painted wax resist on in order to prevent the glaze from covering that area.  I was hoping that they would be black, as they are, because the air was cut off quickly after I removed it from the kiln.  When I removed this piece from the kiln, the glaze was molten yellow and orange and bubbling.  I immediately transferred it to sawdust and capped it with a metal covering to cut off the air, leaving it to smolder for about an hour or so, and then moved it from the sawdust to a place to cool off for a while longer.  At this point, the piece was charred black from the sawdust smoldering around it.  At this point I feel like a kid at Christmas, waiting to see what this piece has decided to be.  I just cannot wait, but I have to because if I start to clean it off with water too fast, it will cool too fast, and break. 

In the photograph, you can see how there are splashes of black within the glaze.  Some of this is white crackle, some of it is from the sawdust.  That is what I mean about never knowing how it is going to turn out. The sawdust made its own imprint on this vase.  Originally I wanted white crackle and clean lines all around it.  I didn’t get that, but I like this better.  It has character, something I didn’t choose.  You can mold and plan all you want, but it will still turn out in its own way.  Much like people, I think. 

This other piece was my first piece where I began to understand how to use the elements (wind, in this case) to my advantage.  The day this piece was fired, the wind was blowing out of the North.  As I removed this molten piece out of the kiln, dripping in glaze, I turned the bottom and outside toward the wind, immediately placed it on the ground upside down, and capped it.  The photo of the outside is a mossy green color.  I think it is rather ugly, but I love it.  When you look inside, you see a rainbow of colors.  This is partly because the air couldn’t get into it as easily from the way this was built, and wasn’t exposed to the wind for very long at all.  The colors are magnificent.  It wasn’t until I was scrubbing this with dish soap and water after it had cooled off that the brilliant colors were revealed to me.  It’s a special piece.  It reminds me to never judge a book by its cover, so to speak.  The outside doesn’t matter, it’s the inside of people or things where you see the most brilliant colors…where you find someone’s true character. 

A few years ago, it was dropped, and that is the crack you see in it now.  Oh well.  It just adds more character.  I wasn’t angry that this broke…imperfections add character.  I like to embrace them and appreciate them rather than throw away what has been broken.  They have character and a depth to them that show a life lived, and a life worth living.