Cooking the pots, that is.
Back in 2009 a pottery class did a raku firing in the small yard beside the studio.
After
getting the clay pots to 1530 degrees F or there abouts in a kiln (not
shown) they were removed red hot (with long calipers) and put into
little tubs.
These
little tubs (a.k.a. trash cans) had a combustable material in them.
Then as it caught fire, the lid was placed tightly on the can, which
created an atmosphere that had limited oxygen, which the fire would
quickly burn up, leaving a starved atmosphere, and then would make the
glaze and the pot turn a different color. It's called reduction,
because the oxygen is reduced.
Here you can see pieces of newspaper in a tub.
These
glazes (low fire) give great metalic shines, and the fire creates a
smokey black color to the clay that is bare...and often has cracks of
black running through the glazes. The clay is somewhat porous still,
and thus can't hold liquids.
I
don't know Italian sign language, and hope Bette is not saying anything
too crude when I snapped her photo. I really like her piece of
pottery.
On
the right is Geoff Bird, the teacher. On left is Bette Potter Jones, a
good friend of mine with many years of making pottery. Geoff is picking
up a unfired piece to place into the small kiln.
My friend Pat Levi showed me her piece after being washed of the soot of the firing. She seemed pretty happy about it.
These are a few of my first raku pieces from that workshop. I still have them, probably won't ever sell!
This is for Sepia Saturday post No. 459
Tasting what's in the pot...perhaps a young wife who hasn't done much cooking in a household yet.
A
few days ago I posted photos of my parents when they applied for their
marriage license, and then the wedding announcements, both of which were
in the San Antonio TX newspaper.
The Lucky Couple.
I remember when I
got married the story my mother told of her first attempts at cooking.
She apparently read the directions wrong, or had written them down
wrong. She cooked rice with equal amounts of water to rice, which
resulted in a burned pot, and a big glob of solid rice, which of course
she couldn't offer to my father. I think they even threw the pot away. Hopefully they laughed about it, even
if they were a bit hungry.
I love that last one with the feet. Raku can be really nice.
ReplyDeleteFascinating post about the raku process. I collect vintage jewelry and have several pair featuring discs with the same iridescent finish -- I wonder if they were commercially fired using a similar raku process.
ReplyDeleteI like your play on words for the prompt! My sister studied to be a potter and ceramist and did some raku when she was in school. It was interesting to see your photos from the class and make more sense of the process.
ReplyDeleteDo you know how your pieces will look when they come out or does the raku technique imply there will be a surprise? I enjoy seeing your beautiful works.
ReplyDeleteThe Raku pottery is strangely beautiful. I like Wendy's question about whether or not the end product will be a surprise or not? As to your Mom's unfortunate first experience with rice when she was newly married, my grandmother hadn't been married all that long when she made a beautiful rice pudding for dessert one night. After three hours, it came out of the oven with a perfect lightly browned skin on top. Granddad eagerly spooned into it only to discover it was simply a bowl of hot sweet milk. Grandmother had forgotten to add the rice. Oh dear.
ReplyDeleteIt's fascinating to see how a controlled fire can change materials. It invokes the ancient relationship between the four classical elements of earth, water, air, and fire. I suppose it must take many failed Raku pots before one gains an understanding of what the glaze will look like.
ReplyDeleteThere are recipes, with grams of each chemical in a glaze, and they are thus tested and can produce an expected outcome...within some variations. The variables do make it still a bit of a guesswork depending on temperature, application (thick, thin, was the pot porous or wet, for instance) and even which way the wind was blowing. And this is just for a simple small load. I'm in awe of potter who fire with wood in large kilns...and get some amazing work out of them. So I got pretty much what I expected out of my firing...and have never had a pot crack apart from the quick temperature changes that raku goes through.
ReplyDeleteI knew a little bit about raku, but all these pictures and the text were a great way to see it in action and really understand.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your comments! Glad to hear from you all! When I was in college our raku was using pine needles or saw dust. Lots of combustibles can be used. Also some pretty metallic glazes are commercially available which fire at low temperatures. Our community studio doesn't do low firings however.
ReplyDelete