Raku Firing

Last week Devanie and Candace and I went to Kickwheel and did a Raku firing.
It was really good (for me anyway). I ended up with 17 pots. Most of which turned
out fine. I'm in the process of loading them up on my etsy shop.
Here are some pictures of the process:



You bring the glazed pots up to temperature in a special kiln. Once they are glowing
hot you grab each one with tongues and put them in a metal bucket with newspaper.
The smoke and fire create the varied colors in the glaze and the temperature shock
creates nice crackles in some glazes. Once they are done smoking we douse them in
cold water and they're done. It's very gratifying to see them finished in a relatively
short time as opposed to waiting for a day. We do Raku once or twice a year.
Just for fun and try out something different every once in a while.
More on that in a future post. I'm working on something really new for me at the
studio and so far I am super thrilled about it. I have a picture on my camera and
look at it every couple of hours... but I'm getting ahead of myself...