On the way to acrylic painting class last night, I took a detour to go by the ceramics lab.  At the same time as my painting class they have a raku workshop that I'd LOVE to be in - the instructor (who had taught ceramics in the LAUSD system for almost 30 years) was about to start firing and doing the final reductions on some wares!  I came back with a friend later and we witnessed the process - absolutely magical!  the wares (ceramics) are heated to around 1800 degrees for a few minutes... then the kiln is opened, and they remove the red hot wares and put them in metal trash cans full of paper, leaves... anything flammable... a big flame erupts and it burns for a while.  they put the lid on the can and let it smolder for a while... then, pull the piece from the ashes, clean it up and voila - a gorgeous unpredictable piece of pottery! 

While I looked around I checked out the shelves to see if I had anything done... and I did!  one of the extruded bowls I had made was out and I LOVE it! - ceramics is a process in experimentation for me - not knowing a lot about the glazes sometimes produces happy accidents - and this one I am very pleased with!

 


Comments

GeekKnitter

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:29:20

Erupting flames... now that sounds like my kind of crafting!

 

Jadielady

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:55:41

FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE!!
And it looks kind of like a butterfly. Makes you remember that sometimes when you're going through a rough patch, that something beautiful will come out of it in the end.

 

Judy G.

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:24:38

Raku is a pretty interesting process- I understand it does have a high rate of breakage during the firing and smouldering stage.

If you're interested, you should check out
Rod and Denyse Simair's website. They do large wheel thrown raku, and crystalline glazing that is phenomenal.

http://www.simair.ca/ I have a couple of their smaller pieces, as the price tag is a little rich for anything large. I toured their studio a few years ago- the process is fascinating! We'll add that to the list of Exciting Things for Kyle to Do in Saskatchewan. What does that make it- two things?

 



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