Playing with Fire

Raku is a type of low fire kiln process that involves taking the pottery from the kiln at bright red heat and placing it in containers with combustible materials. Once the materials ignite, the containers are closed. This produces an intense reduction atmosphere which affects the colours of the glazes and creates smoke.
Lots of photos in this post. I spent the day in a friend's back yard firing pottery. And there was a pot luck lunch.... yummy!

This mask was created made by pressing a slab of clay against a piece of tree trunk that had been cut down. All the ridges and textures of the bark were transferred into the clay and two simple eyes and a mouth were cut out. The mask was bisque fired once and was ready to be glazed.

A selection of the glazes that were available. When the glaze is painted onto the clay, there is no indication of what colour it might appear after firing. It's always a surprise.

Hard at work at the glazing table.

Some of the glazed items waiting for their turn in the kiln. My mask was glazed with a black lustre glaze.... no idea what it might look like when fired.

The back yard kiln. Fuelled by a propane tank. Some finished pieces on top warming up ready for the next firing.

This very hot piece is taken from the kiln and will be plunged into a metal container full of combustible materials, in this case crumpled newspaper, and then the container closed. This is where the magic happens to the glaze.

This process makes lots of smoke. Don't stand too near. And have tolerant neighbours!

Here comes the mask out of the kiln. The firing takes about 15 - 20 minutes.

This dish has just been taken out of the metal flame container and is cooling. It still has to be cleaned up to get the soot and burnt paper off, but much of the black smoke colour will be kept on the clay.

This piece has been fired without a glaze. While the piece is still extremely hot, straight out of the kiln, strands of horse hair have been draped over the surface. The hair burns away but leaves a decorative carbon trail. One of the other potters did the same process with large fluffy ostrich feathers.

And here's the finished mask! It still needs a good clean up to get all the soot off, but I'm happy with it. The photo doesn't do justice to all the different iridescent colours that have appeared in the glaze.