Raku is traditionally Japanese, however I use a contemporary Western version. I love Raku because of its organic and inherently unpredictable effects.

The Raku process is about surrendering to the elements of air and fire - firing the kiln to 1000 degrees and removing the work when its glowing hot.

Then placing it into a bin with combustible materials and letting the flames and reduction in oxygen do its magic.

Several things happen in this process, firstly the thermal shock caused by the temperature drop from 1000 degrees to the air temperature causes the glaze to craze. The clay is so hot it is porous and anything that is not covered in glaze goes black from the smoke/carbon including any crazing in the glaze.

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Inside the bin the oxygen is reduced by placing a lid on the flaming container and this causes the fire to interact with the glaze and create interesting colours and patterns on the surface. For example if the glaze uses copper as the colourant where the piece is oxidized it goes green and where it is heavily reduced in oxygen it will go copper.

To me Raku is perfectly imperfect in that you don’t have total control and every piece is completely unique - it really is a collaboration with the elements of fire and air where the kiln goddess makes the final integrity check!.

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